Arsenal have confirmed the signing of Poland international Jakub Kiwior from Serie A side Spezia.
The 22-year-old centre-back moves to London in a deal worth a reported £21 million, including add-ons, and will provide competition to Gabriel Magalhaes. His contract runs until July 2027 and we have the option to extend it by a further 12 months.
Much like the summer signing of Fabio Vieira, the Gunners’ interest in Kiwior flew under the radar.
Only on Friday did the media get wind of negotiations and things progressed very quickly with the player flying to London on Saturday to undertake his medical. He was at the Emirates yesterday to watch his new teammates beat Manchester United 3-2 and then put pen to paper on his deal on Monday. The club have handed him the number 15 shirt.
The Arsenal family continues to grow 🇵🇱 pic.twitter.com/ka6K70Sw8k
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 23, 2023
Kiwior spent two years on the books of Belgian side Anderlecht as a teenager before moving to Slovakia. He came to the fore at Zilina over the course of two seasons before earning a move to Italy.
He’s been a regular in the first team at Spezia making 43 appearances and featured four times for his country at the World Cup in Qatar. Several other clubs were thought to be interested in his signature including Napoli, Juventus (nice points reduction, lads) and AC Milan.
Welcome to Arsenal, Jakub. We’re looking forward to seeing what you can do.
Welcome to Arsenal, Jakub!
Welcome Jakub
What a great piece of business. Another young, versatile player with loads of potential and some really great experience for his age given he started four WC matches and has been starting in Italy. The whole management team at Arsenal has done such a great job with transfers in three of the last four windows bringing in White, Ramsdale, Odegaard, Tomiyasu, Viera, Jesus, Zinchenko, Trossard and Kiwior. That’s five starters and four key backups (and Tomiyasu was a starter last year), all of which can play multiple positions other than Ramsdale of course.
Equally getting rid of the deadwood has been done as cleanly as possible
While all that is great, I can’t help getting slightly concerned about the lack of updates regarding contract extensions for Martinelli, Saka and Saliba amongst others.
Martinelli in particular worries me a bit as it appeared like it was all ready (“just get me a pen”) but then we’ve heard nothing other than the club’s failed pursuit of Mudryk and then the welcome addition of Trossard.
Maybe it’s just me worrying unnecessarily.
Your worry is not unfounded. I’m not sure why they’re stalling, but I still think if the offers are fair, the club should be ruthless. No renewal before the summer, get the highest possible amount for them and ship em off.
These will be conversations for when the season ends though. Let us focus on getting the maximum from this campaign
I’d imagine any delays are probably due to our position in the league… if we assume the team’s original target for this season was top 4, then perhaps they’re stalling because if we did win the league (or come second) they would have an even stronger hand in any negotiations 🤷♂️
Of the three, Martinelli is the one to be least worried about as we hold a two-year option on his contract so technically he’s still got 3.5 years left.
Ramsdale’s great at annoying the opposition fans… That should count as being able to play multiple positions.
👌
How sure are you that Ramsdale can’t double as DM? No better goalie baller than him aside the freak between Citeh’s sticks😊
Just the sweetest kind of transfer deal. Thanks for keeping it simple and sparing us all the trauma of a saga, Arsenal. And fuck Todd Boehly, what a cunt.
Welcome to the place where heros are made Jakub
Welcome Jakub. Hope to see you out on the pitch soon.
Wasn’t 15 AMN’s number? Wonder what that means for his future.
Elneny’s #4 was handed to Ben White while Mo was out on loan. Although I get that this is a very rare exception of a player coming back into the fold. It’s such a shame about AMN. Imagine if he had decided to stay and make that RB spot his own. And now he probably won’t even find a job in the PL anymore.
The team’s technical quality has moved way past the qualities that AMN has to offer. This is a good thing.
Welcome Kiwior. As a complete unknown to at least 99.5% of Gooners (me included) before Arsenal’s interest was confirmed, I’ve no idea what kind of PL player he’ll make. It will be interesting to see how Arteta introduces him to the English game.
So count you as Kiwiorous?
One of my buddies is Polish. Knows a fair bit about their National side.
Said this kid is an amazing talent.
Welcome to the Arsenal!
Welcome Jakub!
For whoever might be wondering, the pronunciation is YA-koob KEE-vyor.
At least his name has a lot of vowels. Try pronouncing Szczesny Wojciech with its consonant clusters. Polish names are a mouthful.😀
Voi-tek sh-chez-nee.
There you go.
The “e” in Szczęsny is actually a “ę” so it’s sh-chenz-nee. I prefer to call him Sir Chesney though. Sir Chesney the Spud-hater!
Welcome to The Arsenal, Jakub!
When it’s your time, nothing can stand in the way…
Dude went from 15th in Serie A to top of the EPL.
That just has to be a surreal phone call from your agent.
I’d definitely be blinking extra fast to see if I’ll wake up… I trust the team will help him settle in real quick.
In light of this, does any one know the point of acquiring Auston Trusty?
Nice to have extra options for Arteta to look at in the summer preseason.
Maybe he doesn’t Trusty Austin enough…
We’ll be playing Champions league next season. Going to need a big squad. Plenty of room for the talented to work hard and challenge the current starters.
trusty came from Colorado rapids he probably cost us next to nothing and likely a sellable asset after a year in the championship. He was unlikely to make the step up, but it’s a low risk situation regardless.
I’ve been following Trusty’s progress—on Whoscored :D, but hey. He’s played every game at CB (left side of a back three) so far and has been one of Birmingham’s best players, statistically. But interestingly, the last game he played was at LB. Was that injury enforced or a polite prod from Arsenal? I don’t know. Watchers of the Championship, please enlighten us.
not quite sure about the left back question, but I saw him live against Boro and he did play quite well, was the best defender on the pitch (Even though he couldn’t prevent a Chuba Akpom goal;)
Yes, to find out he good he was in the English game. If he turns out he is good enough to play for us, win. If he’s only good enough to play for lower table clubs, win. Taking a punt on a player, loaning them out to see where they land is a good way to measure potential and build player value. Trusty has been playing well for the first half of the season.
‘Juventus (nice points reduction, lads) ‘
LOL ! – 👍
Haha u beat me too it. Lovely bit of poetry from blogs that
Exszcztng Szczining
Chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Szczebrzeszynie – Yes I speak Polish and thats my superpower 😉 So happy for Kiwior, this guy is a real talent and now he is a Gooner!!!
Pardon me, off topic; Am I the o Lu one that has not been able to view comments from the app for months now?
The link that used to show at the bottom of the page that allows you go to the comments is no longer there. And I’ve checked for an app update, but there’s none.
No, same here. Frustrating. My workaround is to go to a blog post – not a news item – and scroll to the bottom, where it says “The post XXXXX,” where the XXXXX is the title of the post. Click on that name. Then click on the three horizontal lines to the right of the Arseblog cannon. Then clink on News. Then click on the article you want. Scroll down from there and you can read and add to comments. That said, I must be missing something because there has to be a better way. I’ve tried removing the app… Read more »
Haha.I just tried this method and it works. And yeah, you’re right. This is not elegant at all, but I might resort to this for now.
I currently either don’t bother with comments anymore. But when I really want to I have to go to the website to access it, which obviously defeats the purpose of the app. So thanks for the hack
Kiwi-or nothing!
I take my coat…
I was already in the “just give me any signing” territory some days ago and would have been fine with a Yaya Sanogo or Ryo Miyaichi.
However, Trossard was an interesting signing and as for Kiwior or any other signing we make, I trust Mikel and Edu 100%.
GET IN!
Men! I remember when Arsenal were trying to offload guys like Mustafi, Kolasinac and the Greek fella whose name skips my mind now. Seems like eons ago.
Welcome Kiwior: no time to waste; Jesus wants you to put your hands on the plough ASAP, and not look back: there is a trophy-shaped hole at London Colney to fill.
Sokratis!
Speaking of Kolasinac, I just read that his house was just broken into during one of his matches. That is one foolish burglar.
Welcome to Arsenal Jakub!
Baby Faced, anyone else feel old every time we sign a player? Lol
now for the final piece.. onana!
That could be messy