Arsenal’s apparent pursuit of Mkyhailo Mudryk may have been complicated by Chelsea’s interest but Mikel Arteta seems relaxed about the situation.
The Gunners are believed to be leading the chase for the Ukraine international – so far, two offers have been lodged – but the Blues are reported to have held talks of their own with Shakhtar Donetsk who’ve previously said they want €100 million for the 21-year-old.
Pressed on the situation ahead of Arsenal’s FA Cup third round tie with Oxford, Arteta said:
“Valuations have to be made between the selling club and the buying club, and it is difficult but it shows there are a lot of clubs with a lot of financial power to spend big amounts, and we have to compete with them.
“To be smart, we have to see good opportunities and we have to be attractive for players. At the end of the day, players decide where they want to play, and if they want to play for our club, that is great.”
Mudryk has spent much of the last few weeks dropping hints on social media that he’d be open to joining Arsenal, liking fan-led posts and whatnot.
He even conducted a poll asking Twitter followers whether his new cat should be named “Clock End” or “Highbury”.
The latter won the day.
If only he also conducted a poll to see if the new name for Chelsea was to be “Bell End”..
Cheatsea
Bell End is good. May I add Oligarchs Bane to the poll?
I suppose it’s time to walk away.. Shakthar’s demands are unrealistic and they don’t seem to be willing to negotiate. Most likely the player won’t go anywhere until summer.
If Shakhtar will not accept our latest bid, it is time to walk away.
There is no need adding more penny than what Arsenal considers high end of the valuation.
This is a players that has not been tested in tge EPL. I understand he has the potential to be a success but Shakhtar is behaving nut
But there’s a chance Chelski will offer crazy money, so I get why Shakhtar are behaving like this.
We will have a limit to what we are willing to pay, let’s just make sure we don’t exceed that.
I would go £80m tops all in, including any add ons. If we can afford to bid £60m, then we can afford to make a final bid of £80m. I honestly don’t get the penny pinching for anything up to £80m, this kid could well get us over the line for the title this year. And being five points or more clear of Man City in January is a situation that doesn’t grow on trees. We have to max the shit out of this opportunity. What’s more, showing some ambition with this signing can only help influence our other top… Read more »
No way Mudryk will put pressure on Shakthar and probably do what al the other players that are not happy and refuse to kick a ball for them wait and see.
Agreed. If he does that maybe we should also reconsider if he is the kind of player we would like to have in our team. Remember a couple of years back we had a player joined us in the winter after he refused to train with his team?? Look where he ends up now. So hope both Arsenal and the player stayed calm and act professionally, like what have been done so far.
Yep it feels like this one is slipping away.
Chelsea have gone in for Thuram now so I doubt they would sign both him and Mudruk.
If we miss out on Mudryk then I suspect we will go hard for Felix. And we’d have more luck with negotiations as Atletico want to let him go.
Well, I think he will sign for us eventually.
But Shakhtar is trying to rob us thinking we are that desperate.
I read that Arsenal already has a high end of Mudryk valuation. Once they reach that point and Shakhtar is still behaving nut and unreasonable, then Arsenal will walk away from the deal.
So Chelsea coming into the fold has no influence other than just complicating negotiation and timeline to reach agreement.
He’s a generational talent..has the acceleration of Mbappe from start,the pace of robben… we’ll eventually sell one of our youngsters for big money anyway…we should dig in deep..
There is absolutely nothing to suggest he is a generational talent, whatever that even means. If you mean he will be the next Messi/Ronaldo etc then I am yet to be convinced. By his age they were already tearing up the best leagues in the world.
He looks like a player with huge potential, who seems to want to join us, in a position we need to reinforce. It looks like a no-brainer but let’s give the hyperbole a rest.
Sounds like what we were told about Pepe, and all the best to him wherever he is right now, but he turned out not even worth half of what we forked out. Bad for us but ultimately very bad for him.
“Sounds like what we were told about Pepe.”
The Fox and The Grapes by Aesop, right there.
We already have THE generation talent in Martinelli.
Coined by none other than Kopp
How much Zaha costs?
I wouldn’t even take Zaha on a free transfer.
I would. He can probably be a good rotation player till end of season when we achieve our goals. And the sell him to fund Mudryk. WIN
😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂
😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂
Zaha is rubbish. He’s old and lazy. I wouldn’t take him if Palace paid us.
This. 👏
Fk shaktar greedy bastards and Fk Chelsea. We don’t need this distraction. Let keep concentrating on the positives this season and improve on our mistakes. Time to pull this mudryk transfer BS bandaid off.
Three questions about our transfer business –
1. Why are we not going for Pedro Neto like we did summer? What has changed?
2. Same as above for Tielemans
3. Should we have really let go Pepe in summer, should we recall him if we don’t get anyone in?
1. Neto is injured and even if available, he would be too expensive as he extended his contract
2. This is a logic/mental purchase. They want to sell and we want to buy cheap. But there are other possible options.
3. Pepe has not impressed his current club. He will not be recalled.
I Think it’s a bit harsh you got all those down wotes mate. Just asking questions. So I’ll try to answer with my perspective. 1. I think Neto is unrealistic in this window as wolves need everything to stay up. And I am unsure if he is the kind of talent worth such a wolves convincing mission impossible. 2. That one I don’t quite get either. I have a feeling Arteta no longer rates him. Because with his contract situation it should be something that could be done. Even if I think there could apply some of the same logic… Read more »
I think we’d already have Tielemans if we had any interest in him. Neto not at the level we need
I’d fancy a bit of Zaha if we could get him for a reasonable price.
Zaha is a busted flush, he is finished.
Selfish, petulant, goes to ground easily, whines, play acts. Spends most of the game on his arse crying at the ref.
No thanks.
I agree with Pepe not playing for this club, think he’s had enough time to prove himself, but I do have to admit, we could of used him coming on off the bench against Newcastle. We currently have no impact subs until Smith Rowe is back fit.
Pepe was skilful, could score some beautiful goals and showed amazing ability, but it was only in flashes.
He was all skill and no work rate; he reminded me of Charlie Nicholas.
With Charlie, that was never enough for George Graham and with Pepe, that was never going to be enough for Arteta.
Think with our league position in mind my friend, not the time for Europa level ambition. We’re there by merit, the team really has improved and gone up a few level.
There’s been report that there was a £5m difference between our valuation of Tielemans and that of Leicester. So, it’s a case of a club asking for too much for a player we can get for free if we wait a bit. So, that might just be the aim.
For Pepe, I don’t think Arteta gets what he wants from him. He’s not used him that much when he was with us and there’s nothing to suggest he would love to use him now.
Neto is injured.
A price tag like that hangs a Nicholas Pepe sized cowbell around the kid’s neck. Erling Haaland cost a fortune, but he is 22 with 3 strong Bundesliga seasons behind him. This is Mkyhailo Mudryk’s (also 22) first season where he looks like he might be able to play for a Big Six Premier League team. If Arsenal were getting him for 25 million and could integrate him slowly, nursing him along as Arteta did with Saka, Martinelli, and Smith Rowe; this would be a great signing. Even if it didn’t work out, Mudryk would get chances elsewhere. The price… Read more »
It would be a great move for him to progress but it needs to be at Odegaard money plus whatever adds on’s other than that we are being gouged.
Not to mention Vieira who cost us £34mil, also plays in those positions and somehow has already been completely forgotten in these discussions? What’s up with that, has everyone written him off already? Asking genuinely. I’m worried we as fans are getting addicted to acquisitions, where it doesn’t matter anymore who we’ve bought recently who’s still waiting for a chance to get into the team, but only the next player we could buy. As soon as we have Mudryk and he struggles to take Martinelli or Saka’s place, the same people will be saying again we need depth up front… Read more »
Yup. If shakthar doesnt accept the bid, let’s go for mitoma or a righr winger, and then revisit in the summer depending on how smith rowe can stay fit. Get a CM now instead to cover partey and xhaka cos lakonga cant cut it and elneny is stop gap.
Who is available as back up for Thomas in this window?
I agree it is a lot of money. But I feel like sometimes fans forget that a club doesn’t buy/bid for players based on Youtube compilations. There are heaps of data they analyze, personality traits, health, family relationships, trajectory in say last 3 – 5 years, leadership qualities… A lot is looked at to decide whether it(potential player) is a good investment.
I’m sure that that’s the approved approach but looking at how many expensive duds most clubs sign it’s obviously not always the case (panic buys) & is far from being reliable.
Chelsea. Just when you thought that maybe, just maybe it was time to stop hating those cunts with a little less venom …
It will never be time to stop hating those cunts. Infact right now, my hate for all other top 5 clubs barring Man City has never been greater. Cuntenham, chelsea, man utd, liverpool and newcastle have just made a good case to join the shitlist. I fucking hope VAR does its thing and fucks with them every fucking week till their fans are foaming at the mouth.
Liverpool have become very easy to dislike since they hired that cunt faced prick Nunez.
A read the headline and for one second thought Arteta had gone Total Football late Wenger crazy.
Ok guys! You don’t need me to tell you where to play. Go out there and figure it it out for yourselves!
Haha, me too at first!
*flashing traumatic images of Alex Song and Thomas Vermaelen trying to play like box-to-box midfielders but never making it back to our own box in time*
I think Mudryk has made it clear on social media where he wants to play but we know how quickly players heads can be turned.
Things are definitely on the up and we are ahead of schedule in getting to where we want to be, and we are playing attractive football which is important in attracting top players.
I hate the January window because player prices are so heavily inflated, and the speculation just becomes an annoyance.
If Chelsea buys him for $100m and gets relegated end of season, will be a real comedy 🤣
It’s obvious – call the new cat North Bank!! 🙂
No way is any player worth that much if they haven’t proven themselves in the Premier League.
Carry on!
Not that I personally think he’s worth that much, most probably not, but that’s the silliest reasoning. Should we not buy Mbappe then either for that sum if we had the chance, since he hasn’t proven himself in the Premier League?
Kylian is worth probably twice as much and he’s on another level.
And yes, I wouldn’t pay that much for him either.
You can get 3 maybe 4 quality players for that amount.
Just my 2 cents.
After all that what exactly do you think I or Arsenal Football Club can buy with your 2 cents? 🙂 Again not disagreeing that we shouldn’t spend exorbitant amounts on a single player (though I’d definitely make the exception for Mbappe or someone of that ilk). Just the reasoning that the decision should be down to whether or not they’ve already “proved themselves” in the Premier League. Most of the stars in the Premier League have come from elsewhere and there are people who work for the club who are paid a lot of money to predict if they will… Read more »
Both yes and no. Take a look at Pepe. We spent $85 million on him based on one good season in Ligue 1?
Have you seen any of the games that Varchester United has played? Anthony looks like shit, and the $100 million or whatever they paid for him was a waste of money.
Yes, it is his first season, and he is young, but I would rather have Mane and Son (f*ck spuds) than him.
Mudryk is not worth $100 million in my opinion. At least, not yet.
A bad buy is a bad buy. It can happen for 20 different reasons that have nothing to do with whether a player has proved himself already in this specific league or not. See: Harry Maguire. Or how Man U thought they were getting a proven Premier League star when they bought Alexis from us hahahaha
True, a bad buy can happen anytime. So what? Are we chipping in to get Mudryk? :]
I hope we get him, just not for what Shakhtar are asking for. have a feeling we will too given how this is playing out, can’t imagine him wanting to play for the mid-table chavs for a few quid more
Makes it impossible for him to choose Chelsea now unless Chelsea make a stupid offer, which is entirely possible!! Scary.
But then they are so far off the Champions League places, what player would move to a club without Champions League instead of going to a team which has a decent chance of winning a trophy within 5 months
Chelsea not making an offer says a lot. They are basically waiting for Arsenal to back out or Shaktar to end it. But that would take it to the end of the window. And they don’t want to wait that long either. And Boehly wouldn’t want more transfer rejection without being able to make a statement signing immediately after.
So I really can’t see it happening for them.
As a blocking move to prevent players going to rivals, they have history with that
An awful lot of balance sheet expert foxes on here, swearing to themselves that the grapes – all of a sudden – are as sour as fuck. “Yeah. Let’s, despite the Kroenkes probably being prepared to part with the necessary cash, all cave in to unwarranted frugality – even though the money being spent here isn’t our own – and all convince ourselves that the youngster, in spite of his electric pace, robust and skilful control and desire to join us, is in fact, after all, as useless as Pepe, because that’s the easiest way to for us all kid… Read more »
I think Shakhtar are going crazy. Haaland went for 55mil if I’m not mistaken and Cody went for less. I want us to sign Mudryk but anything more than 60mil + 15mil in add ons and we should be walking away.
£60m up front plus £20m in add ons and incentives.
£80m tops. They are not going to get a better deal than that – unless this idiot in charge of Chelsea really wants to make them look even more stupid than Potter currently is.
I really want to see this lad in an Arsenal shirt, but he is not worth any more than £80m. You’re then getting into Mbappe territory – and he’s certainly not that.
£80m. Take it or leave it. And for fuck’s sake let’s get on with it. This saga is already beginning to get boring now.
At the end of the day, Clubs can agree on deals. Chelsea can throw as much money at Shakhtar as they want, but ultimately isn’t it the player who has to agree to terms with the buying club that makes the deal happen or not? Hopefully his desire to join Arsenal instead will help force things through.