It’s 40 days until the new season starts and Arsenal haven’t signed anybody. Sure, there are a number of deals simmering on the stove – White, Tavares and Lokonga – but that’s not even a dent in our quite possibly imaginary summer warchest. Also, aside from a few kids, three loanees and our curly-haired liabilities, we’ve not got rid of anyone.
It’s about to get busy.
Eddie Nketiah
It sounds like our offer to extend Eddie’s contract has been rebuffed meaning his sale becomes a priority for this summer as we risk losing him on a free in 12 months time. Patrick Vieira, newly installed as Crystal Palace manager, is sniffing around, West Ham are long-term admirers and Bayer Leverkusen have been named as a foreign option. Having tied down Folarin Balogun to a long-term deal, it does feel like Eddie’s time at the Emirates is nearly up.
Neto
Arsenal were linked with Barcelona’s backup keeper last summer while we looked for a replacement for Emi Martinez. That hunt is continuing into a second summer with Alex Runarsson not up to the job and Mat Ryan, despite doing well on loan, not offered a contract. There were concerns about the latter’s status as a non-homegrown player which would make an approach for Neto, peddled by Mundo Deportivo, pretty odd. On the flip side, he’s a Kia Joorabchian client and we know full well that can get you a foot in the door at the Emirates. On the subject of Ryan, he’s on the cusp of joining Real Sociedad.
Yari Verschaeren
In a single line update on their transfer blog on Saturday, Belgian site Voetbal24 claimed we’re keeping an eye on Albert Lokonga’s teammate Yari Verschaeren. The 19-year-old attacking midfielder has already been capped by Belgium and has 10 goals and nine assists to his name in 67 appearances for Anderlecht. The numbers are decent, as is the fact he sounds like Vermaelen after you’ve sunk a few pints. We’re struggling to believe we’re this savvy though. He’s not 32. Or past it.
Takehiro Tomiyasu
Now that Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis, David Luiz and Dinos Mavropanos have left and Wiliam Saliba is set to join Marseille, I think we can all agree that it’s time for Arsenal to replenish its diminished stock of centre-backs. Oh, you think £50 million for Ben White is a bit overkill? Tough. How about another £17 million on Bologna’s Japan international Takehiro Tomiyasu? That’s what Football Italia would have you believe. Given their stories are as frothy as a James Richardson piazza cappuccino, we’re inclined to roll our eyes.
Alex Runarsson
News broke yesterday afternoon that Alkay Spor, newly promoted to the Turkish Lig, have sealed a deal for the Icelandic keeper. It appears both parties have been in negotiations for much of the summer and he’ll initially join on loan as the club’s first-choice keeper. Good for him. We expect we won’t see Alex in an Arsenal shirt again but six games as a Gunner is something to tell the grandkids about.
I really want to believe again. I’m sure most of us gooners can’t wait to be pleasantly surprised by the board/directors/owners.
Most of us have been very patient. Please make some things happen to help restore our belief! It’s so worth it! Be smart, be swift and let’s get this team going again because we’re the Arsenal so let’s start acting like it
Still plenty of time but thus far it feels like we’ve got it wrong with the midfield targets and are clutching at straws to some degree if you go by the names being touted. We’re dreaming with Locatelli and Maddison is plain silly for multiple reasons. On the plus side we’re moving some players on. If we sign Neto then I am all for Edu and Arteta being put in the stocks outside the Emirates with buckets of rotten vegetables available for passers-by to thrown at them. I’ll assume that’s just nonsense.
I feel like we could cut Runarsson some slack. Most keepers aren’t accomplished until their 20s and don’t peak until their 30s.
This kid was thrown in when he wasn’t ready and we’re treating him like he’s the biggest flop since Ali Dia.
He may still become a top goalie. Give it a rest.
he is 26 now which made him 25 last season.
there is no excuse no excuse to be had here, he is not good enough for Arsenal.
I agree he’s not at our standard.
But every article, every comment puts the boot into the lad.
He didn’t blag his way in, he was given his shot and he took it. I’m sure we’d all do the same.
Good luck to him I say.
Fair enough.Bishop should understand that
I think he’s 25, though. That’s still quite mature, even for a goalie.
Agreed to some extent. Nowhere near as bad as he was made out. Having said I would not be confident giving him a run in the league if we were forced to do so. Remember Fabianski or ‘Flappy Handski’ as he was briefly known he was an accident waiting to happen but came good after he left Arsenal.
Years after he left Arsenal. And I still wouldn’t countenance having him back.
Did better than us last season so lets not talk too much shit.
Has Runarsson been getting constant stick from the fans? I haven’t seen him being mentioned much outside of the games he started. I don’t really have much to say about the dude. I just don’t think we should have given a 4 year contract at 40k p/w to a guy who wasn’t ready. We might end up losing two very talented keepers in Karl Hein and Okonkwo because of it
I understand why, its what happens when you replace the scouting team with coaches.
Not sure why, considering our struggles finding a #2, we don’t just promote Hein and okonkwo to 2a and 2b. We don’t have Euro football so Leno will play nearly all the matches anyway. These kids are quality. And like you say if they don’t get a chance we might lose them.
He’s not good enough and is never going to become good enough for Arsenal, at least he knows it and is moving on. We’ll probably end up paying at least half his salary. I just wish Willian had the same self awareness.
i read somewhere that the Saliba loan has a purchase option, but the figure mooted is beyond ridiculous. i will not give the figure any merit by mentioning it here but it is nauseating.
Read the same, then read it was crossed lines of communication due to Guen moving to Marseille too…Guen has the purchase option in place, not Saliba.
Then again…
I hope you are right
I wouldn’t be too sure about that with the two incompetents we have in charge.
Please no more Kia players. If the choice stood between Haaland on a free or Kia crashing and burning never to be seen or heard of in football again I’d choose the latter on principle.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised at Arteta refusing to get any more Kia players, after being burnt by Willian and to a lesser extent, Cedric. Having just got rid of Ozil, he’s now got another couple of expensive, hard-to-move, low-output players in the squad. Edu’s reputation is tarnished for being involved in those deals, even though Raul and his mate, Kia, were the likely driving force behind them. Now when I see any Kia players linked with Arsenal I’m fairly certain its all put out there by Kia himself, trying to drum up interest in them, with zero actual… Read more »
Agreed but I still think Cedric has been alright.
No he hasn’t. Andrew and James said so.
He’s really not right for £76k a week.
Why aren’t we going for Camavinga? £26m for him is a bargain and he’s only gonna get van de Beek’s seat on the bench at Manure……and can we please just get White agreed??
Firstly because we are no chance. Secondly because he is 18 and has only played in Ligue 1. How many 18 year old central midfielders are starting in the Premier League. Given his age I’d suggest he needs 3 seasons on loan.
Yeah I agree, but he is exceptional and already has three full French caps. I guess with Lokonga they would be too young together, but did we go for the right player? I presume Lokonga will be Partey’s understudy….
I can see Lokonga & Partey playing together with Lokonga sitting deeper freeing up Partey to play a proper #8 role. Maybe as a 2 in a 4-2-3-1 or as the base of a 4-3-3. Seems like that’s the role we had in mind for Partey but possibly didn’t have the right personnel to allow him to do so last season. Lokonga is young & will obviously need time to adapt, so maybe Mo will play that role to begin with to allow Lokonga time to be eased in. Having said all of that, getting a bit ahead of myself… Read more »
Pedri is 18 years old, surely he would start in most of the teams. Who knows if Barca wish to do another Arthur type of deal, we can offer them 50 mil for pedri with a buy back clause inserted just to tease them. And if they buy him back after two years, it would look like a loan deal where the parent club paid us to take care of their player.
Day dreaming i know, but Barca are worse than us at transfers.
I mean to be fair. Declan Rice played 26 games for West Ham at 18. James Ward-Prowse played 34 games for Southampton in 2013-14 at age 18. Curtis Jones played 24 games for Liverpool last season at age 19. Steven Alzate played 19 games at 20. It does happen Camavinga has been playing senior football since 2018-19 when he was 15. This would be his fourth season of professional football. He reminds me so much of Saka. Sometimes, some players are just mature earlier than expected. If we’re making hopeless bids for players like Locatelli, I don’t see how a… Read more »
You didn’t see what I did there did you…
Aww mate🤦♂️. You’re too clever for your own good😂😂😂
I caught a few that’s for sure. Oh and you forgot Fabregas by the way 😁.
Hey, who’s your least favourite French loanee, Saliba or douzi?
Douzi.
Nobody ever says saliba.
Not every 18 year old needs a loan. He’s been a regular for Rennes for near 2 years and is now just 18. If you’re good enough…
But at the cut-price he’s available now, I’m sure he has a lot more attractive options then this current state Arsenal.
Yeah camavinga for 26m pounds if true could be the bargain of the century. Unfortunately I don’t see us signing him, looks like we’re signing two CMs this season, one younger player with potential (lokonga) and one player who can immediately replace xhaka (Neves, locatelli are the kinds of players we’re looking at there) so there’s no room for camavinga I think. If anything, it would have to be camavinga instead of lokonga, and that deal looks to be done. No worries, lokonga seems excellent.
Why would he want to come to Arsenal? There is no European football at all and no likelihood of the Champions League any time soon. There is no legendary name as manager (this is not a putdown of Arteta, but no one would claim that players all over the world, and especially from France, want to play for him, as was true of Wenger). We would have to pay significantly more than any other team to get him. Because of recent history (including buying Alexis Sanchez and Ozil), we are more desirable to a top-quality player than say, West Ham… Read more »
Also while camavinga is clearly a remarkable talent, people have this impression that he’s already good enough to immediately be thrown into a premier league first team, which doesn’t make sense. He’s 18, quite inexperienced, is inconsistent with his passing and his positional play needs work. He’s also not a holding midfielder as some people think, he’s an excellent ball carrier though. I would absolutely love it if we signed him, I think we’d reap the benefits tenfold in the future, but I just don’t see it happening. But god I hope he doesn’t go to manure.
He’s most probably going to manure. They’ve been a lot quicker at completing transfers since they exceeded Dortmund’s deadline for signing Sancho last summer.
I agree about Camavinga but some of those things can be said about Lokonga. Though Albert has much better leadership and discipline. I feel like Camavinga’s best trait is his press-resistance which is what we are missing most in Xhaka.
We haven’t had a midfielder that always progressively dribbles since Santi. Partey can dribble but his defensive responsibilities means he can’t really venture past the center-circle.
Free up Partey and sign another DM. Or plsy mo. E.
Personally, I’d rather have Partey doing the defensive work (which he’s still very good at) than have someone else doing it, who may be better defensively but not offer much going forward.
I’d rather have someone better offensively than Partey (I know he wanted to get away from doing that defensive work, but I’m sure he’d still have less of it to do than when he was at Atletico).
you hit the nail on the head. I’ve been saying it for a while, but imo our ideal signing for a while has been verratti. Before u all come at me, I know, I know, it’s never going to happen. I just mean as a blueprint for whoever we choose to sign. he’s the perfect no 6 imo, can beat the press anywhere on the pitch, passes forward, excellent range, amazing dribbling and ball carrying and never shies away from his defensive duties either. sigh. oh well. one can dream (and play career mode)
No chance. He’s pretty much the hottest property this summer we have no European footy.
Why not sign both lokonga and camavinga and let them compete or use the options. And if that’s not the case these are the kind of signings you make and give playing time and sell them up. It’s a win-win.
Waiting for this transfer season to end but we have sucked for years on end in the transfer market. It reeks of either selfish interest, stupidity or being an ego maniac.
Why not market saliba to EPL teams?
You had me at Why not
Because players and their advisors have a say in these things.
– No CL, no Camavinga
– Would you rather be a guaranteed starter and get to live in Southern France, or risk not connecting with an under-pressure PL manager and have to live in a mid-sized Northern England city?
To be fair, Manchester is our third largest city in the UK. The Metropolitan area is almost 3 million people. As a Londoner, I’ve lived there for a couple years and I really enjoyed it. It has the exact opposite weather to Southern France 😁 but there’s quite a lot to do there and it’s a relatively affordable place to live.
“he’ll initially join on loan as the club’s first-choice keeper”
We should have just took the £500 offer and made the deal permanent. Once they play him in pre season he’ll be back here in time for our trip to the USA
Wonder what’s taking so long with the transfers… No announcements regarding incomings and outgoings, even guendouzi said bye then promptly deleted his message. we haven’t even got a home kit announcement yet 🤔 come on guys give us SOMETHING to get us through the summer
Speaking of something to get me through the summer, explaining the concept of the poop above would be a nice place to begin. I’m not the only one whose summer that can kickstart, yeah?✋
poop-o-meter to determine how stinky and full of shit a rumour is. More poop = more stinky aka less likely to be true. enjoy your summer!
poo-o-meter* my bad
Euro 2020 and Copa America would have delayed the transfers for players who were at those tournaments. Which would then have knock-on effects for the whole transfer market.
Just throwing a wild speculation out there but clubs around Europe may have also been waiting as long as possible to see how the Covid situation would play out this summer – which would affect their budget – before committing to any large purchases.
The last point is particularly valid. There hasn’t been a hell of a lot of movement in general. Covid has teams wanting as much as they’re able to get for players and reluctant to spend. That’s true in general obviously but more so now seemingly.
Yup, fair point. Of course a lot of the deals will happen after the tournaments, just thought it’s strange that even players who aren’t involved in the euros/copa like lokonga, Tavares, guendouzi etc are taking as long as they have. No matter, I was being a bit dramatic, I just hope we can get as many signings over the line before pre season starts, and hope the others aren’t too long after. Pre season can be crucial with adapting to a team, even phenomenal players like Partey struggled last year. Our entire plan this season is to go all out… Read more »
Was also wondering whether quarantine requirements have delayed medicals for some of the more concrete transfer targets like Tavares.
No clue really but I doubt it helps.
It’s a mess, isn’t it? With pre-season training just days away we’ve signed absolutely nobody. And nearly all of the dross is still hanging about.
The management of the club is a joke right now. The club is far too big for the likes of Arteta and Edu. They are struggling. If we don’t move quickly then we’re heading for a car-crash of a season.
Oh, I forgot: Korenke out!
Oh wait! I thought Wenger was the problem.
Why do the two things have to be mutually exclusive?
In fairness, there’s been very few deals done by anyone other than loans and free transfers. I agree that we need to get a move on, but I remain confident that stuff is happening, albeit slower than we’d like.
And, yes: Kroenke out!
If only we had a David Dein to sort this shit-show out!
David Dein was the man who brought Kroenke to Arsenal. Then when he was having issues with the Arsenal board, he introduced Usmanov as a counter to Kroenke’s gradual ownership acquisition.
Then it became clear that Stan and the other shareholders were never going to let Usmanov become a majority shareholder. So as retaliation, David Dein and his son, Darren, used their influence at the club to convince our best players to push to leave. Which meant we sold them for less than they were worth.
When he worked for the Arsenal, he did what he thought was best for the Arsenal, that is getting in more money from new investors to pay for the new ground – he was also incredibly good at buying the players Wenger wanted.
Admittedly, once he was gone he did his best for the players he then represented.
He’d still do far better than Edu – how many decent signings have we made recently?
Yeah he would do a better job. I don’t doubt his business acumen. Just highlighting that habit of getting poor compensation for our outgoing players started with David Dein.
Another overpriced Kia client? Yay!
I gotta say, I’m getting more and more annoyed by this transfer speculation.
It seems like most moves we’re making are the exact moves we shouldn’t be making.
I hope I’m proven wrong.
It’s just Kia trying to get his players moves and spewing out bogus rumours trying to drum up interest.
I wish I could believe you. But I can’t.
I am getting worried we are going to be seriously short in midfield, attack and right back at the moment.
When is the good news coming?
Bizarre how we’re not signing Ryan permanently. He ticks all the boxes you want for a second choice keeper – all except for being home-grown. Heck he even supported Arsenal growing up and wanted to join us.
If my understanding is correct, 17 is the maximum number of non-HGP allowed to be registered in a Premier League squad and from the squad which finished the season we’re down to 13 without Odegaard, Ceballos, Luiz and Ryan. Runarsson going would cut that down to 12.
I was wondering the exact same thing. Did they actually add up the number of non-home-grown players or are they just confused by what happened last summer?
It’s a shame the Bissouma chatter has died down, he’d be a great replacement for Xhaka and give Lokonga some time to develop without being expected to be a world beater on day one.
He’s be mazing but cost as much as Camavinga and Lokonga put together. He’ll also disappear with Partey to the ANL in Jan which would leave us a bit understaffed…..having said all that, I’d still love him !
Did see some reports a month ago or so, bissouma has not played for his national team since 2018. Also i dont know much about afcon, but i would have liked associations be it afcon, asia to re schedule and be conducted as the same time as euros, clearly these tournaments are proving to be a hurdle when it comes to buying players from Africa and many countries know Europe is where most professionals wish to play.
Summer isn’t a good time for tournaments in the tropics.
Hear me out. Some matches at the current EUROS have drinking breaks and that’s usually when the temperature is only 27°C -30°C. Now imagine endurance running at temperatures between 35°C-45°C (April to September), that is incredibly risky, especially for the players based in Europe that have adapted to European weather. Once a kid at my secondary school died from heat-stroke on a school expedition trip in Egypt. It sounds convenient until a player is hospitalised or dies from exhaustion. Hosting a summertime (in the northern hemisphere) AFCON & Asian Games can only happen in certain countries, which kind of defeats… Read more »
I am quite happy that I have been busy with the Euros and the Copa. This is the only transfer rumour page I look up. Don’t know what I will do after next week.
Hibernian v Arsenal next week.
Yep, it’s only because there haven’t been any Euros games on recently that I’ve started looking at the articles here again. I’ve been trying to avoid any Arsenal content recently (including podcasts and YouTube channels) because it’s all too annoying/depressing.
Should have got Ryan, he is an arsenal fan and would make decent backup, also free or minimal fee – wasted opportunity there
To be fair to Ryan he might have wanted to be number 1 than settle for riding the pine – even if he is a fan.
Didn’t seem to bother him last season.
Urgh. What will be will be. Wake me up the first game.
If reports of Sabitzer being available for £20 mil are true, we should be all over it
Meh
Having watched him a few times, I don’t think he is as good as Xhaka.
I agree, average and arrogant
I think something could still happen with Grealish.
Villa’s interest in ESR is weird. Why would they think we’d sell him? But the bigger question is, if they want him badly enough to come in for him with three separate bids why don’t we do the obvious and include him in a player plus cash deal for Grealish?
I’m really struggling to understand why we let Emi Martinez, an HG leave for so cheap and now the only other target that is HG for GK is Ramsdale for exactly the same prive if not more… And it feels like Leno will be leaving next summer or something…