Mikel Arteta has hinted Arsenal will be busy in the final month of the transfer window after labelling the size of his first team squad as “unsustainable”.
The Gunners ended up taking 29 players on their tour of the USA but left another six at home who are either injured or not part of the Spaniard’s plans.
Throw goalkeeper Matt Turner into the mix – the American was on holiday following a busy summer with the USA – as well as a number of promising academy prospects and it’s clear the dressing room at London Colney is overcrowded.
“We have 30 players here which is unsustainable, and obviously the market is still open, and things can happen – but we are prepared,” said the manager after the 5-3 friendly win over Barcelona.
“We are really happy with the squad we have at the moment [in terms of quality]; we obviously have improvements to make in terms of what we want to do in games, and we have to do that. Overall, I’m really pleased with the team.”
Back in April 2022, Arteta went on record stating his desire to have 22 outfield players and three keepers.
While there’s likely to be some leeway on that number ahead of a Champions League campaign, there are still pleny of question marks over the likes of Kieran Tierney, Rob Holding, Auston Trusty, Cedric Soares, Nuno Tavares, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Nicolas Pepe, Marquinhos and Folarin Balogun.
Having bought early, Edu’s team have left themselves plenty of time to work on departutes. On Tuesday, there will be a month left of the transfer window and we should see things crank up a gear.
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For more on this subject, check out Lewis’ latest piece for the main blog.
Trimming phat has rarely been our strength. Actually having some success here would cap off a beauty of a window. Surely PSG need a mbappe replacement? Maybe even a swap deal involving Pepe? That might be more of a miracle than turning water into wine.
With the additions this window, some players (Cedric, Tavares, Pepe, Holding, Sambi?) surely have to see the writing on the wall. They’re going to get 0 game time in any competition. Down do the players agents to do their job and find their players a club
Giving Mo a new contract was victory of heart over head.
Im really surprised no bid has come in for Pepe. He’d be brilliant at a team that plays on the counter. Hope he finds his form.
His wages are enormous, so teams are just waiting for us to cancel his contract I guess.
feels well early to be writing off Marquinios
Is it a writeoff…or is it a correct assessment that he is not in the plans for this year? Another loan to the Championship or perhaps to a midtable Liga team may make sense.
A player like Rob Holding should be going for 20m to a decent club. He’s very good, just not for what Arsenal are becoming. But a bit like Chambers, he’s not glamorous, and not young anymore either. So I doubt we’ll see more than 7m or 8m if we can shift him at all. Funny though, cos guaranteed he’s better then a lot of prospects who will go for bigger money.
The problem with that logic is west ham have just bid 20 mil for McGuire who will probably go for 25-30mil…as much as we laugh at how shit McGuire is truth is he’s still and England international and gets a regular start under Southgate…so that will have an impact on what we can realistically get for holding and don’t think it will be much more than 10 mil. Also we suck at selling and now everyone knows all we need to sell and will wait till they can screw us for the lowest price. Don’t think Arteta should have made… Read more »
Yeah but he slipped in the last game, so it’s time for the world to panic! 😂
West Ham can afford 50m, surely.
West ham bid 20m for Maguire!! What are they smoking?! Surely holding is an easier and most importantly, better buy.
He’s also 3 years younger,and doesn’t spend most games looking confused and depressed.
Great description.
He’s like the anti-messi when he plays. Miserable.
Or having the ball pinball off various parts of his body and fly into his own net.
or have a head the size of a moai
west ham should be looking at trusty, but if they want to sign anyone from us in the future the cost is 100m.
Yeah, Holding would improve half the teams in the league,
given a decent run in a team that doesn’t play our style, he’s a very good player.
We need to loan or transfer out Cedric, Pepe, Lokonga, Tavares, Holding, Runarsson, Okonkwo, Patino, Balogun, Trusty, Elneny and Marquinhos. That will leave us with 1 spot to add someone if needed.
If we could get 100m from player sales I reckon we’d see another right winger come in
Tierney and Balogun could prove vital options to have from the bench; hope we keep them.
When you see our rivals are losing decent players in Mahrez, Gundogan, Fabinho, Henderson, keeping our best squad players could be an achievement in itself.
Not sure why Marquinhos is mentioned in the article; he’s only 20 and we only signed him a year ago.
We won’t command much from the others but Pepe 140k, Cedric 75k, Lokonga 50k, Holding 40k, Tavares 27k, Runarsson 15k, close to 350k a week (18 million p.a.) can be saved.
Balogun would be a great option from the bench, problem is I think he’s already made it clear he won’t be happy with playing that role. Which is fair enough.
I think the best option atm is to get as much as possible for a young player that’s just had a break out season.
Thank god martinelli saka and smith Rowe don’t have the same attitude as Balogun and were and are willing to prove they are good enough to start not demand it. Take as much as we can get for him and close the door after he leaves.
I can’t believe Cedric earns almost twice as much as Holding…
It’s going to be difficult to move these players on. Apart from Balogun they are so bad that nobody wants them .
More accurately the clubs who would want them can’t afford to pay the wages, or come close to matching the wages, that they have been getting here.
We have Cedric, Sambi, Nuno, Pepe, Holding and Elneny who are all surplus to requirements but we struggle to get a decent fee for any of them
Enelny? He is not going anywhere. I love him
which of these players would you pay over the odds for if you were running a football club? how much would you ask for them if you’re edu?
a 2.5m euro bid from turkey for holding (insulting to all involved, really) and a reported very low bid from inter milan for balogun (25m, after making double that on onana and still claiming poverty, lmao), nobody has made any public noise.
They aren’t bad at all, except Soares and no idea on Trusty,
the problem is that the transfer market is far slower than usual.
Well, apart from our bit of it which has been much faster than usual.
Trusty is a fine left sided center half who can play in a 3 or 4 (or even at lb). He’s tall and strong and alright on the ball. Just because he doesn’t have the pedigree of a European player doesn’t mean he’s not capable of pulling in a healthy fee. Teams that play low block and rely on physical play would benefit hugely by adding him (west ham, forest, wolves, everton)
i’ve seen trusty play possibly more times that anyone here (unless we have some birmingham season ticket holders) and simply because people don’t like the source of the information they downvote. keep it classy, comments section. 🙂
Yeah, know a little about him, but have never actually seen him play, so don’t feel I can really judge him as being bad or good.
Really upset about Pepe. The guy has talent but doesn’t seem to go well with Arteta and his vision. Too much hype and a ridiculous transfer fee has ruined his career. Was hoping he would get going again in France. Wish him all the best. Scored some nice goals for us.
Saudi clubs have been queuing up to take other PL clubs misfits and dead wood. Bar one rumour about TP, no interest seemingly in ours. Bear in mind we nearly won the league last year, I find this a little odd.
Maybe because they can’t launder money thru our owners
With the possible exception of Tierney (and I don’t know Trusty), they can all go.
Sell: Lukonga, Holding, Vieira, Nketiah
Loan: Marquinos, Elneny
I forgot Pepe, he should be first on the list of outgoings.
this list of players to sell and loan is pretty ridiculous. you’d have us sell half our midfield depth here and we’d be right where we were for the last 2 seasons.
who benefits from an elneny loan? certainly not the player, or arsenal.
vieira and nketiah aren’t going anywhere, they’re clearly part of the manager’s plans.
Elneny’s not going anywhere. The stature he has in our locker room is plain as day. He’s essentially on Arteta’s staff at this point.