Hector Bellerin’s proposed move to Barcelona is gathering pace with various reports suggesting the full-back will move on a free before 11pm tonight.
In this instance, the player’s contract at Arsenal is not being terminated, instead, he is waiving money owed to him and taking a pay cut to facilitate an agreement between the two clubs.
It’s additionally claimed that Barcelona have agreed to the Gunners including a sell-on clause meaning we’ll get a slice of the pie should he depart Camp Nou in the next couple of years. That wouldn’t be a huge surprise given how wild things are under president Joan Laporta.
Bellerin looks likely to be one of two first team members leaving Emirates Stadium today. Ainsley Maitland-Niles is set to join Southampton on loan after extending his current contract by a year.
As for incomings, it sounds as though Edu and Mikel Arteta are pushing hard to sign Douglas Luiz from Aston Villa as backup to the injured Thomas Partey and Mo Elneny.
The Brazil international scored against the Gunners last night and is understood to have been marched straight to the contract dungeon by set piece guru Nicolas Jover.
You can keep up-to-date with all the latest Transfer Deadline Day deals on our LIVE BLOG.
Love me some Rosický
Personally I think I’m not too fussed if we don’t bring in a central mid. We’ve got partey/mo elneny/sambi all to cover the position and sambi can hopefully fill in until partey is back? I’d rather get Mudryk in for Saka breathing time (assuming Reiss Nelson ks out and Marquinos is not ready to go – if either of them are in the plans then centre mid is more important!)
Good luck Hector. one of my favourite players for a while, so quick and skilful too, though lost it through injury plus whatever else started putting managers off.
Big move to go to Barca, hope it goes well (and they pay him…).
Love you Hector! Fuck the Orcs who screwed your Arsenal career, especially Mr. Head Injury Marcos Alonzo. Line his underwear with Biofreeze for me when you get to Barca!
And Auba to Chelsea for £12m…
Is what it is, we needed him out of the club at the time. No questionable attitudes and poor roll models in this team, that toxicity can be contagious.
We all are on the moon right now but please stop the toxicity thing. Arteta wanted him out because he wasn’t carrying the team on the field anymore. We haven’t won the FA Cup with the current team yet but Auba did win one for us.
It was disciplinary breaches actually. You don’t stop a player training with the first team because of bad form… The poor form obviously didn’t help but I don’t think we would of got shot of him in January if Auba had his head in the right place and wanted to improve.
Boilk
Good luck to Auba, but I think he’ll flop at Chelsea. We had his best years and he’s over the hill now.
A real panic buy on TDD by the Chavs.
The tables have turned, they’re getting our ex player’s now who are over the hill now.
Judging by the number of goals Auba scored at Barcelona, I disagree with your comment.
Thomas Tuchel Will be sacked before WC and Auba will be benched by the new manager. That’s my prediction.
He apparently looked very good at Barca (I think replacing him with Lewandowski involved Barca’s/Laporta’s branding/political needs, not dissatisfaction with Aubameyang). But your general point is right: it’s a ridiculous buy for Chelsea for anything other than the absolute short-run. But maybe he will help keep them in the top four (they are in real danger there) like Van Persie got Ferguson his last title.
£12m is how much we would have spent on his wages between January and now anyway, so we haven’t missed out on a big payday.
Such a nice boy Hector, why would he want to get involved with those brigands at this stage in his career?
Anyway, at least our crack sales team have learnt a little bit from giving away Auba and inserted a sell-on clause.
Happy for him. Hope it works out for him at Barcelona
This feels like a rip off when Baca are just in negotiations to sell Auba, whom they also got from us for free.
I would expect at least a hefty sell on fee.
We’ll see, but I’m not sure we’ll get that much. However, something is better than nothing which is what we would get if his contract had just been cancelled (like Auba’s). It’s taken a long time, but Edu’s persistence in getting unwanted players off the books has paid off.
Still seems utterly mad to me that we can’t get some kind of fee for him. He’s an experienced player, came up through la Masia and Colney. He had a good cup winning season last year.
But no one in world football was willing to pay for his services? I know it’s Barcelona and all that, but I swear a club with its outgoings in better nick would have got at least £8 million for Bellerin.
Yes, but some kind of fee from whom though? No club was prepared to pay one as far as I can see. We’ve been trying to offload Bellerin (for a fee) for quite a time now and there simply haven’t been any takers or, I assume, we would have taken it.
The other way to look at it, is that in Hector waiving any money owed to him from Arsenal, coupled with the saving on his wages (£6-8m per year) were better off letting him leave, with the sell on clause and therefore free up the money tied up in a player who is unlikely to contribute to the season. There’s also the risk that Hector wouldn’t have been registered by Arsenal, this saves that embarrassment too. It’s frustrating because it’s Barcelona, but if Betis were in a position to be able to sign him, I bet it would feel a… Read more »
Hector is taking a pay cut to make this move viable. If he wanted the same salary, maths dictates that Arsenal would have to pay Barcelona the value defecit to take him. There is absolutely no market value here to factor a transfer fee unfortunately, it’s still a good deal! Well done Arsenal and good luck Hector!
Shame. He had great potential as a 19-year-old but never really developed. He won’t last at Barcelona because he’s not good enough. Hopefully, we’ll make some money when he’s sold on.
It looks like those early injuries to Partey and Elneny are a blessing in disguise: they’ve forced Arteta and Edu to wake the f**k up and sign the midfielder that we desperately needed anyway.
It looks like we won’t sign a striker though: so goodbye to top four.
We’ll see at the end of the season if it’s goodbye to top four. Eddie has looked good every time he’s come on. There’s also January if need be and a hell of a lot that can happen in that time.
Here’s hoping that midfielder comes in. Douglas Luiz wouldn’t have been my first choice but a proven premier league player and one of the better of Villa’s overrated squad.
You’re a real tonic
Whether we make top four or not this season I’m pretty sure it will have nothing to do with us not signing a third choice striker.
Romano saying he’s signed a one year deal so not sure how that affects any sell on fee – would fully expect Barca to invalidate that sell on fee somehow.
The one year deal is so when he signs a new deal it will be free of Arsenal clauses for sell ons.
I don’t think that’s how these clauses work. If that was the case, any club who have signed a player with a sell on clause, can separately negotiate with the player to invalidate the contract and sign a new contract. There should be some legal checks in place to ensure we get the sell on regardless of the future contracts with the player by the buying club.
Assuming that’s true, an earlier report said Arsenal had just cancelled his contract, it’s a better deal than I thought we’d get at this late stage. A “well done” to Bellerin and Edu is in order for sorting out a sensible arrangement which is best for both parties.
Thanks for the Rosický piccy
How can a decent human being like Bellerin go to the cuntiest of all the twatclubs in the world?
Fuck barca but good luck on the subs bench for Bellerin.
My guess is he’ll be at betis next season and I wish him well, great ambassador for the club but another poor contract situation, hopefully that’s the last one 🤞
Good Luck Hector and thank you for all that you have done for Arsenal.
Not sure what the difference was here between him going to Barca for nothing and going to Betis for nothing. I guess what goes around comes around given we absolutely fleeced them for Alex Song, Alex Hleb, Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars who weren’t close to the level with them that they were with us.
Oh I’ve just seen in the live blog what the issue is. Fair enough. Let’s just hope Barca don’t somehow manage to wriggle out of giving us some money when they sell him, like invoking their right to take-backsies or something.
Barca are probably still pissed at us over the Vermaelen transfer ~£15m paid, for something like 50 appearances over a 5 year period.
Works out to be roughly 300k per appearance…
Not that inspired by us trying to Luiz in tbh – anyone else feel underwhelmed by this, especially if the fee AV are asking for is allegedly £40m
Btw Fulham have been playing well so why on earth have they just signed Wil-i-aint? Madness!!!
This time they didnt say he has Barcelona DNA …
Good luck to him…he has been a loyal lad and never spared an effort for the team…
Good luck, Hector. He’s going back to where he came from La Masia, like Cesc did.
Barca’s business model is to get our players on a free and then to sell them to Chelsea for a fat profit.