According to the Evening Standard, Chelsea are the latest club to show interest in signing Folarin Balogun.
Following his impressive year on loan at Stade de Reims in France, the USA international hasn’t been short of suitors this summer.
West Ham, Fulham, Inter Milan have also been linked with the 22-year-old while Monaco tabled a bid that Arsenal rejected because it didn’t meet our asking price.
Whether that price is the same for all clubs, seems unclear. There were rumours that the Gunners cited a much higher figure when Sp*rs sniffed around (as if we’d actually agree to that deal) and that Edu would want at least £50 million from Chelsea; a sizable chunk for a player with one Premier League appearance to his name.
The Blues’ interest in Balogun is fuelled by a desire to add firepower to a squad that currently *checks notes* includes nine attackers. The Hale End graduate isn’t the only name on their shopping list, Brennan Johnson (Nottingham Forest), Mohammed Kudus (Ajax) and Bradley Barcola (Lyon) are also said to be of interest.
Balogun hasn’t been part of Arsenal’s squad for the opening two games of the season and hasn’t had any minutes on the pitch since the MLS All-Stars match in Washington. D.C over a month ago.
At one point he was carrying a knock but as far as we’re aware he’s now fit. The transfer window closes on 1st September so if the interest from Chelsea is real, they are up against a ticking clock.
No less than 80m to that lot
Or a straight swap with Levi Colwill.
80m plus 5m add on with 8.34 years of contract. They still have tons of money in the coffers.
All smoke, no fire.
Arsenal bought Pepe after a decent season for 72mn. Man city got Dodo for 50+mn yesterday, while people are reluctant to pay 50mn to Arsenal for Balogun, who had the best stats in his age group in France.
Something is fishy in the way, our players are valued
and all of it up front.
I really don’t get this, “We can’t sell Balogun to a rival” stuff.
Arteta thinks Flo is a worse player than Eddie. That is as clear as day.
So if a rival wants to spend +£40m on a sub par Nketiah, then we should facilitate that.
Flo will just become another Chelsea player in a squad filled with Flo Balogun’s.
I say, lez do diss!
Gotta say I agree. If Chels were somewhat functional or had any idea how to use/develop attacking talent I’d probably have some reservations.
As it is, they’re shit, they love handing over stupid amounts of cash in their attempts to collect ’em all & Balogun has never really been an integril part of our squad.
If they wanna hand over £50m, why not take it?
Also, if you want to put a little shine on the Havertz fee…
If we sell them Flo for £40m then we signed Havertz for £20m plus a player we don’t need and who hasn’t ever been a part of our first team.
The price should be how much we can get from Chelsea, regardless of where we rank him in our hierarchy. 😉
In fairness, we only know that Arteta thinks Balogun is a worse player than Eddie *right now.* And, because we are legitimately chasing a title, that is what matters, not Flo’s long-term development. But that may not be what matters to other clubs, and his long-term prospects ought to be reflected in the price we are willing to accept.
Cool. I’m even more down with them spending a small fortune on a player that isn’t good enough right now.
Chelsea need goals right now. So I’d much rather they invested in a development player than someone who would hit the ground running.
Also, Chelsea are just an absolute joke. Let’s be real for a moment and take off our partisan Arsenal hats. Mudryk is a fantastic player. You can just tell. But he’s been horribly managed from day one at Chelsea and his development has probably been damaged long term. Look at Omari Hutchinson. Different level to Flo but you get my point. Chelsea wouldn’t know what to do with peak Henry right now. They are a clown car of a club and should be treated that way. It would be Flo’s worst career decision if he joined those muppets. But I… Read more »
Well Balogun isn’t that young. He’s 22, which makes him older than Saka and only a couple of weeks younger than Martinelli.
One thing that concerns me about Balogun is his attitude, why would you want to leave the best young side in the world?
Being unwilling to compete for his place worries me. Contrast that with Eddie, who clearly has his flaws, and you can see why they’re in their respective spots in the hierarchy.
If Chelsea, or any other club for that matter are willing to give us big money i’d definitely sell.
Would you accept a straight swap for Lukaku?
Definitely not. Lukaku plus 30m might be tempting but still no. We already have enough strikers to miss sitters and Lukaku just isn’t made for Prem
I’m just curious about our valuations. I doubt Arteta would want Lukaku, esp not at his age.
Show us the Money!! His body language reeks of Ainsley Maitland-Niles…..won’t discuss an extension,won’t make any compromises….Good luck lad…as long as it’s not when you’re playing against us…
Why do people insist on slagging Ainsley?
His body language when taking a penalty was great. Nerve-wracking, but great.
Because Ainsley refused to adjust to the manager’s recommendations when he had a chance to become an Arsenal regular. And now his career is all over the place. He’s a perfect example of someone who didn’t put his head down and listen to good advice.
Arteta didn’t even want to give him the chance to compete. What kind of concept is “we need to treat Nketiah right” in football although Eddie showed some really good stuff yesterday? Is Arteta treating Tierney right these days? Why would Balogun want more of this treatment through an extension?
You’ve observed his body language from training clips?
Also, he could not well against us, then go on to score 30 goals for the Chavs to help them finish above us. Would you be glad about that?
Whoever Chelsea buys that scores 30, would be a massive annoyance. If they buy Flo, I’d be 50 million times less annoyed. If we’re not using him, and not *going* to use him, I honestly have no problem. It’s not like he’s Henry or Bergkamp – he hasn’t played for us, there’s no “legacy” – and even if there was, other clubs buy players that play well. Not all of them pay us in the process.
given bohley’s admissions that he wants chelsea to be more of an american fanbase team, it makes sense they’d target balogun (especially after missing out on tyler adams and selling christian pulisic) with the north american world cup on the horizon. however, its chelsea, and they have to be overextended financially by this point (nearly a billion dollars in 18 months? ffp? anyone?), so i would not only demand more money than we’d ask for from say… inter or monaco, but also demand all the cash up front as who knows how long chelsea will be solvent (unless they can… Read more »
FFP only applies to european competition, so that’s definitely not gonna be an issue for them this season. But yeah, you would think that they must be close to breaching the equivalent prem league rules (profitability & sustainability?).
Having said that, a couple of months ago the league awarded the trophy to a club it thinks broke those rules over 100 times, so who the fuck knows what the deal is.
Bohley did something really similar with his Baseball franchise, basically bought up tonnes of players, broke the rules, got a slap on the wrist, made his team much stronger and competitive.
My bet is he’s doing the same here.
Source: HITC Sevens https://youtu.be/xPa7qZSRQAA
I’m well aware of how the dodgers operate, one of my childhood friends is a first team coach.
However, todd doesn’t have full control there, and has to operate within a salary cap (and also he has to negotiate with a players union).
MLB salary cap is a soft one, practically non existent compared to the NFL and NBA
A billion pounds if we’re selling to those cunts.
They would probably pay it, so yes to that
Fat boy Boehly thinking: “wut? If they askin that kinda munny he gotta be good. Pay them!”
I hope Balogun does his due diligence, and finds out in advance whether Chelsea intend to immediately loan him out to their newly acquired sister
club in Ligue 1, Strasbourg.FC.
Who cares? He’s been fluttering his eyelids at spurs and Chelsea because he feels like hes owed a place in the starting line up after one good season in a pub league. I hope we squeeze chelsea for an onscene sum and then he flops hard.
My comment was a reference to Chelsea’s disrespectful attempt to sign Elye Wahi, and then loan him straight out to Strasbourg FC, a club that finished well below Montpellier FC in Ligue 1 last season.
Wahi was rightly not impressed with this, rejected Chelsea’s big money offer, and is now going to play Champions League football with RC Lens instead. Good luck to him.
That’s tremendous. Things like that plus Olise resigning with Palace still give you hope. It’s too bad they are the exception.
Ah ok, that’s indeed a heartening story in a landscape of greed and shit.
Pub league where Mbappe, Messi and Neymar player last year? You are judging the situation out of context. A critical fact is that Arteta didn’t to give him the opportunity to compete. This was impossible under Wenger.
Pub league where Mbappe, Messi and Neymar player last year – but all for one stupid club
Pub league where Lacazette scored more than Balogun. Lacazette, who couldn’t have found his *rse with both hands for the last couple of seasons in the Prem.
Yep, the same pub league where Saliba was developed.
By your logic the Swedish football league is world class because Larsson, Ljungberg and Ibrahimovic came out of it. You do understand that top tier players come out of absolutely dog shit leagues all the time, right?
By the same token you shouldn’t overrule Balogun’s achievements in the league by calling it ‘pub league’. The league has a long history of dishing out great players who go on to achieve similar stats in other leagues.
Mind you, there’s a long list of players who did well in the EPL but go on to other leagues and produce shite…..so if you really want to make an argument, be objective.
Yeah but it’s the same old tune from Heavenly. PSG have a few world class players so it’s therefore written in stone that Balogun is guaranteed to be a runaway success in the PL. “Messi was miserable in France for two seasons dontcha know and therefore…”. Like a broken record.
You bang your anti Arteta drum even when we are winning. Amazing.
If we register him in the side before then, they couldnt.
Dont do this lot any favours Arsenal because you are desperate for a few quid. Its an unpalatable solution for a player who would burn all of their bridges with supporters of the club he grew up at. If you want 50 million from the likes of Monaco, its at least 50% more for these chumps or a middle finger.
Whatever Havertz turns out to be this year, I’m still pissed we helped those cunts out with even a penny of their FFP situation.
They can have Balogun for £60m. And Todd Bogey’s tear ducts.
Ha. Autocorrect hates that guy also.
Fuck Chelsea. I can’t begin to explain how much I dislike that amoral, no history, Neanderthal breeding, classless cesspool of a club.
They think they’re gaming the market. I really hope this backfired horribly. If it does, liquidation really could be the stakes.
To be clear, again, fuck Chelsea.
Bored ape fc
You should read the vitriol btl in yesterdays Chelsea article in the Guardian. There is clearly an intense dislike towards that club from a lot of people. Probably more so than even Man City.
Honestly, I feel that way too. Chelsea were first to distort the game through sportwashing and then hired Mourinho. And whatever else I think of Man City, I have never heard Guardiola disrespect his own players or blame others for his own decisions.
There is also the way Boehly is throwing money around and gazumping other clubs I’m one clueless recruitment after the other. Utterly classless.
Taking players against their wish is one of the most horrible things to do. That too by using all the blackmail and bribes that they could.
I know we’re supposed to hate Tottenham but surely I’m not alone among Arsenal fans that I can’t muster nearly as much hate for those minnows as I have for Chelsea. So with that in mind, would this be the most despised move an Arsenal player has made since Ashley Cole?
I don’t know if we’ve built that much love for Balogun?
Nothing is more enjoyable than watching a Hale End boy make the first team but – and I realise this may be harsh – Balogun’s conduct has left me pretty meh about his departure.
(Also fuck Chelsea)
That’s fair enough actually. We probably won’t care much unless he actually does really well for them. Then it would hurt.
Adebayor, Nasri, Fabregas & RVP far worse in my book.
RVP 😢
All those years of injury/being a bit shit. That stung.
Couldn’t care less about Adebayor and Nasri, two of my least favourite Arsenal players even before they left. Hate Barcelona to this day for Cesc but could never bring myself to hate the player. RVP, now that one still boils the blood. But at least he wasn’t a product of our academy so you couldnt expect him to know how much we hated Utd. Balogun grew up here and should know every bit how much we hate Chelsea.
When RVP moved to Man U he severed any future relationship with Arsenal, his actual home club, and I get the impression he bitterly regrets that now. How often does anyone see RVP turn up in any Arsenal settings? My impression is never. He’s shunned and he deserves it.
He’s shunned 100% but I don’t think we hate him as much as we hate Cashley. He’s just someone I feel is for the most part a nice decent guy who made one really shitty decision in his career and that cancelled any positive feelings we had towards him or his time at the club, there’s resentment but hate might be too strong a word? Cashley though, I don’t feel like there’s anything nice or decent about him and feel strongly and distinctly negative towards.
I agree. I think the difference between the two is that RVP is sad about it while Cashley couldn’t care less.
RVP is dead to me once he went to United. Teams I hate the most, Chelsea, United and Spurs in that order.
I agree with Chelsea in the top spot. They are absolute cock vomit.
RVP wasn’t any kind of newcomer. He had been at the club for over 8 years, joining as we became Invincibles, so he had nearly a decade to learn the fans’ feelings about out rivals.
What gets me about him is we stood by him while he was regularly injured, then fucked off as soon as he had an injury free season, giving the club no option other than sell him to United, which meant we couldn’t even get his true market value.
His condescending ‘dear Guys’ letter was typical of his attitude
When they leave I stop caring about them.
Surely not Santi!
Never Santi.
Definitely hate Chelsea more than Spurs, who are a total irrelevance as a competitor for silverware. I would not sell Balogun to them, fill-stop. Unless, it turns out, he’s nowhere near Premier League standard and will massively flop there like Mudryk has so far. In which case, they can have him for £85m.
Flo’s situation is actually quite different from Ashley’s, who had been a pivotal player for Arsenal at the time, and whose departure demonstrated the power shift between the two London clubs, which made it all the more bitter.
Here we have a player who almost never played for us and who’s been deemed surplus to requirements, so getting a decent fee for him from Chelsea would be absolutely fine by me. I’d despise him for choosing them, but no more.
I don’t think he’s been deemed surplus. I think Arteta wanted him to stay and believed he could long term become our first choice striker if he was willing to fight for his place, the fact he wants a guaranteed starting spot is what’s forcing our hand here.
Why? Balogun has done everything he possibly could to get a look-in in the Arsenal first team, short of single-handedly winning the title for Reims. If Arteta doesn’t think he’s a good fit, that’s fine, these things happen and we literally don’t have a choice but to defer to his judgement, which has been pretty good lately. But that being the case, Balogun has the right to consider all options available to him vis à vis where he wants to continue his football career – including local rivals – without having to be subjected to insane moronic vitriol.
He did get a look. But he wants the whole mirror for himself
£55m to Chelsea
£35-40m to Monaco plus buy back & sell on clauses
At 55 Chelsea will not agree any clause and we wouldn’t ask for them. The situation with Monaco will be different, but I f doubt they will ever reach 40 even with adds on. If the offered us 40 straight I’m sure we will take it. Next option is Saudi league, their market closes on 20th September, he may stay a year there but I very much doubt it. This is a good exercise, it shows the player nobody thinks you’re that wonderful to pay top money
Havertz fee would be acceptable, yes
How about we return Havertz to them for a refund then just keep flo to see if he can score goals for us…hmm…yeah, I like that…
Does flo play in midfield now?
No less than £120m to those cunts.
What is your best offer, then tell the player, I hope you understand that you will be bench here and bench at Chelsea, as they have a few 100 mil players ahead of you
Balogun is mid. Straight swap for Mudryk would be cool though it won’t happen. Really think he would have been a big player for us.
No way! Mudryk is fast turning out to be the Ukrainian version of Nicolas Pepe.
He’s playing for Chelsea. Nobody is good for them. Arteta was willing to spend £80m on him, I trust his talent ID for the most part
I’ve been commenting on this site for like 10 years yet EVERY comment I make has to go through a moderation process. It’s bullshit.
I’ve explained lots of times before why this happens to some people. I’m sorry, it’s not personal.
Out of interest, as someone who is also impacted by this, why is that? As I’ve never read an explanation before so have missed the reason.
Basically over the years we have 1000s of IP addresses, phrases, usernames etc, that are in moderation. Sometimes ‘innocent’ people get caught. We try and release all comments as quickly as possible, but sometimes we have to sleep etc
Thanks for the explanation.
It’s every comment for me that gets moderated. I’m pretty certain I have never posted anything to warrant that (Shawcross’ Mum would be proud of me, etc.) but appreciate it might be something else triggering my every comment needing moderation.
I know, but surely there is a better solution. Maybe to moderate first time commenters for a period. Then if somebody is consistently being a dick after their grace period, just ban them.
All first time commenters are moderated. But as I have mentioned, the volume of terrible shit we’ve had to moderate over 11 years and nearly 1,000,000 comments means that unfortunately some people will get caught. I wish there was a better solution, but there honestly isn’t.
I believe there are rules to this comment section. Scrap the moderation, give those who break the rules a couple of chances, and ban them for repeat violations.
We just can’t do away with moderation, sorry. It’s a mild inconvenience to you, and I apologise for that, but it would basically be a nightmare for us to do that.
Thank you for moderating – I don’t doubt it’s arduous – and I’m sure if there was a better way you would love that! Especially with rampant hate speech out there, or the over use of hyperbole – I’m a fan of the opinion that people can make and learn from their mistakes – but most forums don’t allow for that. So please keep it safe and kind here with room for discourse. In saying all of that – for those not in the know for the rules here… can you link me to them or repost them? And to… Read more »
https://arseblog.news/comment-policy/
Thanks – also for future Arsecast would love to hear your thoughts on Evan Ferguson for arsenal – getting us a young big forward to offer something different
Don’t think Brighton would want anything less than £100 mil for Evan. There are news of us already lining it up next summer 🌞
Fuck Chelsea!
Yeah!
I know it’s a shit workaround but you could jump on a VPN when browsing the site and your source IP would change and perhaps you won’t get caught in the net?
May the one with the largest dowry win his heart (feet).
I honestly don’t care where he goes, he just needs to go now. He’s a big headed pain in the arse and they’re welcome to him.
Couldn’t agree more
If Arteta thinks Balogun is likely to
explode, then he would have been playing. His exclusion from game-time signifies he’s a work in progress. As such, if there’s a big offer sell him to the highest bidder. There can be no sentiment here. We need to concentrate on ourselves rather than worry about our brash neighbours.
Considering where you’re from, aren’t you a Liverpool or Everton supporter?
PS. I love Ship Building. Such a beautiful song. Can’t decide which version i love the most though. Yours or Robert Wyatt’s. I guess yours edges it with the Chet Baker solo towards the end.
West Ham -£65 m
Chelsea – £80m
Spurs – £100m
Outside EPL – £50m
West ham, 105 million.
It’s funny West Ham even made an attempt in the same window they literally squeezed us for Rice.
You would be very lucky to get €30m from outside the PL. Better be realistic or you’re going to be very disappointed with the fees we get.
It’s strange to me that more players don’t consider the state of the club they’re moving to. Some do, Rice I think was careful with his choice. Like all the players who still push for moves to Barcelona. Why doesn’t the sorry financial state of the club give them pause? Even if it doesn’t put them off the move completely, at least prevent them from groveling at the feet of a club who can barely even register players? It makes the growing influence of SA and petrostate backed clubs all the more concerning when the majority of the players don’t… Read more »
Because most of them are thick/poorly advised.
Mudryk being a prime example. Caicedo too.
Mudryk got sold by others. Caicedo, well he needs the money. He’s got a big family to take care and Chelsea we’re only one really interested. Liverpool bid was to increase the price as they offered peanuts in salary
Let’s replace him with Greenwood please
I’d rather have retired RVP back than that
And so the Adebayor 2.0 arc begins…
Say what you want about Adebayor but he actually played competitive matches for us.
I’d say this is more of a Chupa Akpom arc. All the best to him if/when he goes.
One BILLION dollars!!
Hi Ajax, we like Kudus and you like Balogun , here you go swap deal and instant upgrade on Chuba Akpom.
If he wants to really further his career he should be staying well clear of Chelsea. But if they’re willing to pay £50 million for him then I guess we take it.
I’d rather sell him abroad for less with a buyback or sell-on clause though, if we can.
Everything Chelsea touches right now turns to shit.
That’s why they’re called Chelshie
He seems determined to get plenty of first team football, which makes me wonder if he’d accept a move to Chelsea or even Spuds. At a “big club” he’d still be what he is at Arsenal, a prospect with one good season in France. He won’t be starting 30 games a season at a big club. Fulham, he would. They have the Mitro money, an opening at striker, and they’re not going to be buying the next shiny striker in a year’s time. Show us the money, Cottagers.