Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis has confirmed that he is looking to sign Sokratis from Arsenal.
The Serie A side had been in for Gabriel Magalhães only for the Brazilian to choose the Gunners instead. With Kalidou Koulibaly looking likely to move to Manchester City, Napoli boss Gennaro Gattuso needs reinforcements for his backline and likes the cut of our Greek’s jib.
“We are working on signing Sokratis Papastathopoulos from Arsenal, we consider it an option,” De Laurentiis told reporters, according to IlNapoliOnline.com.
Having played with Sokratis at AC Milan, Gattuso knows what the centre-back will bring; experience and professionalism at a low cost. A fee of around £3.5 million has been mooted, way down on the £15 million Arsenal paid Borussia Dortmund for the player’s services two years ago.
Sokratis would be forgiven for running down his contract at Arsenal and leaving on a free next year but he clearly wants to play and knows that game time is unlikely to be forthcoming in N5 having watched us sign four other centre-backs in the last three transfer windows.
I’d take 3.5 million for him, would free up some wages also. Best of luck to him I say!
Agree. There’s no way at all of recouping more than a fraction of what we paid. Take it, if offered.
If Gattuso was considered “The General” then Papa will be known as “The Apocalypse”.
Heh. “A-papa-lypse”
Dammit, that’s a far better joke!
Doubt we will get much more than 2 million and having to pay off some of his wages. Good luck to Papa, I will always love defenders who celebrate tackles!
Sokratis is underrated in my opinion. He’s never once let us down, well maybe that 5-1 at anfield, but that was mustafi disasterclass as well.
Solid pro and deserves a far better send-off than most in recent years.
Off topic but now that we have ceballos. If we had to sign only 1 player whom would it be ? partey or aouar ?
salomon kalou
Nzonzi or Scott Parker
I’d go for Partey but the fee is (of course) the sticking point and his club won’t budge so that may remove him from the list by default.
I agree with that but actually, the fee is even worse for Aouar (who is much younger though).
True. So we’re down to a shortlist of, er, none. Ah!
Partey. Hands down. He is the complete established product and the exact piece we have been missing in midfield for the last 10-15 years. Aouar is a gamble and at a massive price. He looks sharp in some champions league games, but he is far from established complete and finished product.
Christopher Samba
Milner
Sebastian Frey
Yohan Cabaye
Hatem Trabelsi
Yann M’vila
Surprised this guy never made it to arsenal
Kim Källström
André Santos
I think most of us agree that, with hindsight, “we wuz robbed” paying the fee we did for him (if reports are to be believed, one of several “odd” over payments that the club has made). Anyway, if we can get around £3.5 million for him and his wages off the books, that’s about as much as we can hope for. Come on Napoli … pull your finger out and firm up that interest!
I challenge Arsenal fans to create a better song for another player than his.
A real old school defender. Good luck papa.
he isn’t worth a penny
Quite right, he’s worth about £3.5m – what Napoli are prepared to pay.
He is among players you will just miss because of the heart, passion and professionalism. Wish him all the best. Can never fault his attitude in any match he played.
Why are fans so kind to players milking millions of pounds out of the club and sitting the last year of their contract out before leaving on a free? It’s called stealing a living and you or I wouldn’t get away with it in our much less paid jobs.
Players, just like anyone else in employment, have contracts which they entitled to fulfill. If a player works hard, trains well, but isn’t selected, that’s not something to be critical of them for.
I think there are very few players who will just sit around and pick up their wages with no interest in playing or contributing.
I can’t think of any like that at our club! cough “Ozil” cough…
I’m not sure that’s fair. Ozil seems to have plenty of interest in playing for Arsenal. It’s just that Arsenal seem to have no interest in playing him.
Not sure about that. I don’t think he’s shown much commitment to the team for a long while now, and under more than one coach. He also seems, according to reports, to suffer from a string of “unusual” injuries that usually prevent him from being available for selection, let alone being selected. He doesn’t appear to want to play anywhere or he’d probably have gone by now, albeit for a (much) lower salary. Could that be a factor? I wonder. The fact that, as far as I know, the club has received no serious offer for him should tell us… Read more »
For the billionth time, Ozil’s absence is down to the board.
Not Mesut Ozil.
Jeeeez.?
No it’s not. If Mesut was producing top performances week in week out, you know goals/assists, sublime forward passes that sort of thing and doing his bit defensively he would be in the side. Arteta gave him a long run of games pre lockdown and he produced basically fuck all. When Emery talked about discussing freezing Ozil out with the Board everyone just assumed he meant the board talked to him about doing it to force Ozil out. Maybe the truth was that Emery went to the board to ask permission to discard the Club’s highest paid player because he… Read more »
Is the play arshavin?
That’s true, but if a player was being paid so much money – far more than he could have really expected and far more than any other player at that club – and is not (for whatever reason) turning in satisfactory performances for a team you have a situation whereby no other club will take him (a) because of his salary – he very probably won’t leave to take a huge pay cut and (b) because said performances wouldn’t justify a move even if the salary barrier could be overcome (usually by his club continuing to pay part of it… Read more »
I think everyone at the club no longer values his contribution couple with the fact that if he plays he’s entitled to add-ons, which will increase his wages too much, therefore the decision not to play him.
sokratis does not seem the guy to be milking money and working down his contract. He’s even said it’s not about the money and I believe it. He’s played a lot of games and his act of making sure the youth got medals before him was nice to see, hardly a waster on the books.
Wish you all the best Papa. will definitely miss the celebrations on last minute tackles
Can you imagine being a Napoli fan; ‘we’ve got such a great defender in Koulibaly and I hear the young prodigy Magalhaes is joining us’
Only to find out Magalhaes is joining Arsenal, Koulibaly is joining City, but don’t despair we are signing a 33 yr old Greek Called Sokratis.
Wow being a football fan is truly madness, why do we put ourselves through it?
You know, for long-time Napoli supporters, there’s probably nothing that could ever match “we’re getting Maradona” anyway. Though, I understand Messi is available.
I’m so excited with Magalhaes until I realise man shitty are gonna get a colossal in Koulibaly. Looking around I see chelshit and manure bolstering themselves with good players that I’d fancy coming here.
Kinda scary to think about the level of competition next season.
I pray it doesn’t come back to bite me but Koulibaly looks like he’s on the decline last season.
At least he wants to play.
Unlike some wet sponge with big eye balls
way to describe an Arsenal player(his situation or not). Best fans in the world
Albatross around Arsenal’s neck???
Why does being an Arsenal player protect him from criticism? He is literally sucking the Club dry and doing fuck all for it in return. He is a leech. He cares only about his own situation.
Would you defend Xhaka if he took his shirt off in the centre circle and took a shit on it, because he is an Arsenal player?
Don’t be so sanctimonious
Absolutely correct.Lets face it the way the team has evolved since Ozil last played for the team he is really struggling to even get a place on the bench.
I’m a little confused as to why we continue to let players go for so little to clubs who are making big sales. If they are getting anything close to their asking price for Koulibaly, why shouldn’t they be expected to spend some of that on a replacement? Why shouldn’t they be expected to pay 10-15m, or, why should Arsenal be the ones who are expected to lose out on Napoli selling a defender for a massive fee to Manchester City? Staying on Napoli, I think back to how little we let Ospina go for. I know it gets wages… Read more »
I completely agree. What do you think the reasons for this are?
Who at arsenal would a club contact when they want to buy a player off us I wonder, because it sounds like our initial response always sets a very low value for every deal from the start
Might be different if we weren’t currently carrying 19 CBs on the roster (give or take a dozen). Not to mention a niggling bug going ’round depressing ticket sales and, ergo, transfer fees. Plus, isn’t Chillwell a homegrown player?
The Devil is in the details. And timing.
Technically so is hector
Hector is not homegrown for a French team
My larger point is that, according to Transfermarkt, 19/20 we were -$117.42 million in transfers. 18/19, -$79.48 million. 17/18, +$5.66 million. 16/17, -$112.95 million. 15/16, -$26.4 million. In five years, wherein we’ve seen almost the entire squad turn over, Arsenal are down -$330.59 million. No wonder there are money issues.
Actually, I misspoke. My larger point was that it’s one thing if we were pushing a player out the door, but when a club is set to massively profit off of a sale and they come calling for one of our players we should be within our rights to ask for a bit more.
The numbers look correct. Those funds– mostly wasted. They also apply to different reality– with those involved in the decision making, all having departed the club. The real money issues for Arsenal are going to revolve around the length of time until fans can attend matches again.The club apparently receives a higher percentage of revenue from matchday receipts than any other PL club. I’m not certain there will be full PL stadiums until this point in 2021. Arsenal cannot wait to begin Arteta’s Rebuild– from the dark-end of the Wenger Era– through the Dark Age of Unai– and the Purge… Read more »
We are rubbish selling. We should be getting at least 1o-15m for Sokratis. Its a bit of a running joke. And it has consequence to our purchasing plus squad as we now have to foolishly consider selling stronger assets like Bellerin, maybe Martinez, Lacazette to mint the money. It will have impact to the squad, two steps forward one step back sort of thing as per usual. yet some people seem to think we are in great hands. I mentioned back when Mslintat was in charge our transfers were erratic and not necessarily purchased with squad balance in mind (see… Read more »
I stopped at ‘we should be getting at least 10-15m for Sokratis”
Never happen.
Sokratis could sit on his contract and leave for free. But then he would be even older, having not played for basically a year and totally out of the shop window. Plus who know what the hell the financial state of football clubs will look like next summer due to covid. It would be a mad gamble. Players aren’t totally stupid, much better having the security of a good 3 year contract at this time than gambling on the Bosman market. I.m sure even someone as valuable as Auba must be thinking this too
Buy High, Sell Low.
Arsenal transfer policy is amazing….
Not a great pirce. Admitedly he is an older asset but still plenty to give particularly in Italy where players can keep going till slightly older… I don’t think we are aggressive enough negotiating on his price. Seems we are being rolled over considering they will get a decent price for Koullibaly even if they have sold him a little too late. At very least we should be getting 10m for Sokratis. Every penny counts for us with these wantaways particularly it will negate us having to sell better assets to fund what we need in squad rebuild. This is… Read more »
I think if we take stock of what we can sell, what we need, the magic figure imo is about 110m That will mean selling on one of Auba or Laca for 30-40m mark Selling potentially one of the keepers or Bellerin for 25-30m And selling all remaining unwanted assets for 40m. This will aspire to cover : 20m on Pepe and Saliba commited (Thank you Sanlehi) 25m+ on Magalhes Leaving 60m odd for one or two players at DM and left midfield (Plus some for Willian and Ceballos fees, not to mention Mari and Cedric recently) That’s not a… Read more »
The other thing is we know Napoli need to replace on Koullibaly and they will get decent money from City for him. We should not be unrealistic but surely we can squeeze them for 10m at very least for Sokratis whom in Italy at 32yrs has potentially (if he keeps himself in good nick) , a good 4 seasons left in the tank top level. I think we need to play hard ball with them a bit and push for a higher return. Sokratis was still one of our more dependable assets in a flawed defense. Should NOT be going… Read more »