Kieran Tierney’s short-term future looks set to be resolved in the coming days with The Athletic reporting the full-back will join Real Sociedad on loan. The same publication also claims Monaco are close to recruiting Folarin Balogun on a permanent deal.
David Ornstein claims this evening that Tierney will fly to San Sebastian this weekend to undertake a medical. The Scotland international was at London Colney this afternoon, but like Balogun was part of a small group that trained away from the squad expected to face Fulham at the weekend.
Tierney is under contract at Arsenal until 2026 so the club clearly feel comfortable about sanctioning a temporary move knowing they might be able to recoup a decent fee next summer. For all the talk of interest from Celtic and Newcastle United, neither side actually came close to tabling an offer. It’s believed the 26-year-old’s wages were also a stumbling block.
🚨 Real Sociedad close to agreement with Arsenal to sign Kieran Tierney on loan. No buy option but #AFC get fee + full wages paid. If all goes to plan left-back will travel for medical over weekend. 26yo wanted #Sociedad (regular games + CL) @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/itHQmTXQEP
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) August 24, 2023
A move to Mikel Arteta’s home town is certainly bold for a player who struggled with homesickness when he swapped Glasgow for London. At the same time, it’s probably the best place to eat in the world and they have Champions League football, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Monaco’s move for Balogun comes a couple of weeks after they had an initial verbal offer rejected by the club. They’ve now returned with a second higher offer which some reports put at €45 million including add-ons. Not bad for a guy with one Premier League appearance to his name. It’s said they have also agreed a five-year deal with the player.
🚨 AS Monaco close to reaching agreement with Arsenal to sign striker Folarin Balogun. Clubs still negotiating final price but 22yo USA international is now on course to join #ASMonaco from #AFC in permanent deal @TheAthleticFC after @FabriceHawkins #USMNT https://t.co/QR1JAnDdA5
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) August 24, 2023
Having scored 21 goals in Ligue 1 for Stade de Reims last season, a return to familiar territory makes sense for Balogun who has been something of an outcast during the Gunners’ pre-season preparations.
Despite being taken on the tour of the USA, it never really felt like he was going to be reintegrated, especially with several suitors circling. Inter Milan showed an interest and their approaches by Premier League clubs but they seem to have been put off by the higher asking price.
As Edu’s team finalises moves for Tierney and Balogun, so attention turns to offloading several other first team squad members, including Arthur Okonkwo, Rob Holding, Nuno Tavares, Cedric Soares, Sambi Lokonga and Nicolas Pepe.
It’s going to be a very busy week.
Happy for Tierney but not happy as a fan.
It’s all the more bizarre when you re-read what edu and Arteta said 2 years ago when they gave him the contract extension…ridiculous…
https://www.arsenal.com/news/here-stay-tierney-signs-long-term-deal
Think that sums up most of us. Whatever the reasons for him not getting minutes we all love him. Cut from a different cloth. Terribly hope he has a Xhaka like turnaround and goes on to be our player of the season.
Same here..also feels there’s more to this than meets the eye…A falling out? Is he that much worse than tomiyasu? I mean,after all timbre is out for the season…why not keep him till January since there’s no big sale?
He’s leaving – and allowed to leave – because he wants to play regularly. Simple as that.
Hard to play regurlarly when you dont make the squad on match day and have to train separate from the group though.
He is being asked to leave, without being asked.
The move for Tierney surprises me. I understand the player may have his own motives to move with lack of playing time but KT is an excellent player. Personally I’d go as far as to say that if we had a match tomorrow with Bayern or City away in the Champions League, I’d have Tierney starting over Zinny. He may not be “sexy” but he’s definitely the better defender. I don’t see the benefit to Arsenal of loaning him out, especially considering Timber’s injury and Zinny’s patchy history with injuries. As regards to Flo, it was a straight shootout between… Read more »
Love Tierney but he no longer fits our system. He is essentially our 4th choice LB behind Tomi, Zinny and Timber.
I wish him all the best and hope we get a decent loan fee that can go towards another signing in the next week.
Suppose a benefit will be KT’s 110k/wk will be off oor books plus whatever fee they’re paying. Love the guy so sad tae see him being in this position that he has tae leave tae gain game time. If he impresses in the CL that can only increase his profile should a suitor come along in the future.
Still think 45m for Balogun is low, considering he’s now an international and given the madness of fees being paid elsewhere.
I take your point, the fee’s now are getting crazy. But in my opinion Boehly is solely responsible for that, paying 80+m for average talent. Rice wasn’t worth what we paid for him either (even though I’m glad we have him). Considering the last good fees we got were for Ox and Iwobi, I’d take the hand off Monaco for 45m for a player with no PL experience
45m for Balogun is a great deal for us.
it really should be 50m pounds, take it or leave it, in this market
Zinny’s patchy history with injuries, and his occasional lapse defensively
Good luck in Spain KT, Tesco bag and all.
Glad the Balogun saga will be soon be over and that he is not being sold to a team in the PL.
It’ll be a Carrefour bag instead I guess.
On another note, I’m extremely interested in what the readership here thinks of the links to Evan Ferguson? Full disclosure I’m Irish and our media has been getting totally carried away with Ferguson mania. Genuinely comparing him to Haaland. To me he looks promising but I think his build as an 18 year old (meaning he can compete against season pros) is colouring people’s views a bit. If I had to bet my life on it, I think he will plateau as an Ollie Watkins level striker (no shame in that) but I wouldn’t be crazy about spunking 100m on… Read more »
Ollie Watkins would probs cost £100m in today’s market tbh.
Balugone?
I didn’t know Monaco could put that kind of dough on the table! I guess they might resell him around 100 millions € in some years
Monaco isn’t exactly a low income state…
I guess they put it all on red.
I can think of a player who scored on more goal in the French league one year than Balogun and is going for a song.
Hopefully with a fat sell-on clause…
As loans go that’s a fantastic move for Tierney. Really hope he takes the time to learn the language (or Spanish at least) and gets some good performances in a great team and city.
Good luck KT. You deserve more playing time.
Side note on signings. We really need some Saka cover – what happened to all the noise around Pedro Neto from a couple seasons ago? I know he had a bad knee injury, but he’s fully fit now. I think he’d be the perfect signing.
I am still a bit confused as to why we didn’t go for Kudus or Diaby, they were both relatively cheap and look quality
Should’ve gone for Olise from Palace his release clause was only £25m
I believe in REISS
I do think Reiss is going to surprise us this season
Slightly controversial but I’m not convinced we need dedicated cover for Saka, or if it would even be a good idea to push the boat out for someone that can do everything he can, and then sit them on the bench. Havertz, Nelson, Vieira, Trossard, ESR and Martinelli can all play on the right to varying degrees.
Just concerned Saka will end up playing almost every game and burn out towards the end of the season. Only Reiss has really done a job there and then only once I think.
I wonder if maybe Jesus might be the dedicated cover to Saka.?
The best thing that could ever happen to us is Nketiah starts banging them in like there’s no tomorrow. Then we have high level cover for saka and Nketiah in one player Jesus..
Jesus does seem like the only adequate cover for Saka at the moment. You also have Trossard who can pay LW and CF.
Maybe we will sign Ivan Toney in January, seems to be a bit of noise there. Then it’s Eddie and Toney through the middle with the wingers also able to cover.
We won’t be signing Ivan Toney, he insulted Arsenal and he’s a gambling addict. There’s no way the club would want him.
Plus Brentford just slapped an 80M price on him. Not worth half that.
Gambling addict doesn’t exactly seem to fit our values
I didn’t even consider Jesus, that’s a good point.
Ive genuinely been bummed out by KTs declined role at Arsenal. He was a fan favorite and in the running for club captain two years ago before that injury. I even remember him being our biggest attacking threat from LB during the early Arteta days. I cant really recall any point where KTs been a glaring weakness in the team. I can’t remember a situation like this in recent times, the clubs usually been loyal to quality players. I guess it speaks to the ruthlessness of the new era. Anyways, we move… good luck KT.
Sociedad is celtic country. He’ll be more at home there than in london
I’m happy for Balogun. 40 million for a young player means serious investment by Monaco and they are committed to him to be their main striker. The long contract will allow him to grow and prove his worth. A win for both Balogun and Arsenal.
Hope he proves the doubters wrong and Arsenal has a buy back clause in the contract.
I don’t think we will see him come back, and I believe it’s for the best.
This is a player who agitated for a move by saying publicly that he didn’t want to go out on loan, posted very obvious Inter Milan pictures on Instagram when they were after him, and doesn’t even mention Arsenal on his Twitter profile.
So a questionable mentality, and a damaged relationship. Good luck to him still.
Both these deals are bad for Arsenal Football Club.
We absolutely need a player like Kieran Tierney at the club. He is a quality full-back who is at least worth a place as a squad player. After the injury to Timber, any thought of selling Tierney should have been dismissed. Now we’re relying on injury-prone Tomi to stay fit all season. Stupid.
And I get the feeling that Balogun will become the next Gnabry: he’ll probably be banging in 30 goals a season at Real Madrid in five years’ time.
Instead, Arteta is keeping average Eddie Nketia. Stupid.
I agree with you about Balogun. Eddie is pedestrian. Throw any striker on this Arsenal team and they’ll have the same output as Eddie, and Eddie doesn’t make other around him better.
It’s hard to discard a narrative once it’s built. The set narrative is Eddie bad Balogun good. Even if Eddie scores 15 leagues to some people he will nevr be better than Balogun and yet the team coach doesn’t pcik him. You have to wonder.
Furthermore playing ability is not the sole determinatlnt of success, attitude, drive, motivation, you know the intangibles of success are just as important. Anelka, Pepe for example.
I love Eddie for his self belief and I’ll support him untill he’s no longer with us.
We can like Balogun without having to. Shit on Eddie.
What narrative bro? the set narrative is balogun is bad and has a bad attitude because arteta doesn’t pick him and eddie is good because arteta picks him. Balogun scored 20 goals in his first full season yet Eddie who scored 4 from 20 big chances, has the same number of goals one of our centre backs, and also scored 4 goals from 30 appearances last season has a better attitude because the coach picks him. The coach picked holding last season instead of kiwior. the coach can be set in his ways and can have a low appetite for… Read more »
There must be something more going on behind the scenes because shipping Tierney out at this stage does not seem a particularly inspired move. It could well come back to bite Arsenal this season. In any case, I won’t be surprised if we don’t do as well as last season when, for all the excitement and hype, we managed to throw the league away and won SFA. Perhaps we might get a cup this year?
Have to say that, for the most part, I agree with you Fats.
As you know, I’m Pro Eddie. For now…..😉
If we were keeping Tierney and Balogun you’d write a comment saying how it was bad for the club.
books need to be balanced and squad needs to be trimmed, by at least 5 players. we are selling the players that attract a market. Eddie would not fetch half as much as Balogun. I don’t think Tommy has any real suitors,
Eddie is a far superior player to Balagoun. My bet is he’ll score 15+ goals this season in all comps. Balogoun will probably do the same but it won’t in the prem.
eddie who hasn’t shown any glimpses of greatness in 4 seasons eddie vs balogun who scored 20+ goals in his first full season?
Gnabry turned out to be fine but I remember people saying that we were wrong to sell Iwobi, Willock or Ox – and that we did right to keep AMN.
Time will tell, but there always is an element of risk in selling a player. I for one think we did it at the right time, even though I wish we’d have managed to go north of £50m.
I totally disagree on Balogun. I’m prepared to say that as I’m not a professional football scout I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think he’s going to hit the heights some people predict. Scoring goals in France isn’t super difficult and I think we’ll look back on this as a good deal.
Have just seen the Fat Gooner comment saying both of these deals are bad for Arsenal…. So I’ll bite. I just did a TINY bit of research and found that if Balogun does move to Monaco for €45 million that will make him the joint most expensive transfer in Ligue 1 history outside of PSG transfers (which we know are skewed). If you don’t want to sell to the Prem Big 6, then there are probably 3/4 clubs in Europe willing to spend more than that on a striker whose had one good season in Ligue 1. I guess people… Read more »
this transfer would also be higher than any fee paid in Bundensliga history outside of Bayern Munich.
I don’t get this one good season thing. He’s only played only one full season. Do you happen to know some other strikers that have scored 20 goals in their first full season. He was one of the highest scorers in the French league, of course Monaco was going to pay to dollar for him. Why are we selling though if he has such high potential, when we have a striker issue and Nketiah has had enough chances. I don’t really see Nketiah training ground shenanigans translating onto the pitch. His touch looks like his boots are made from lead.
Think this might be partly due to the player’s ambition to be the main man, which isn’t a bad thing, just that it doesn’t fit the current Arsenal team and plan. Don’t think Balogun would start over Jesus this season, yet I get the impression that he doesn’t want to sit, unless injured.
“His touch looks like his boots are made from lead.”
2 PL games this season, 1 goal and 1 game-winning penalty won. Eddie was closer to greased lightening than “lead boots” in both moves, but why let some inconvenient facts get in the way of the narrative.
two nervy games where we barely had any xG because we were dead creatively up front. the penalty we got was a lucky penalty – eddie was not scoring that in a million years and he missed a couple of big chances against palace and made several bad passes. just watch eddies highlights from that game and his touch will become apparent to you. eddie scored a few goals last season as well in back to back games then went missing for the rest of the campaign and was replaced by trossard. we did much better when trossard played 9… Read more »
Eddie was injured twice in the latter half of last season so would have struggled to be banging them in.
who got injured in training after he was dropped.
Yeah. The low xGs were all Eddie’s fault and his alone. And the 2 incidents you now call “big chances” show just how much you know about football. And who said anything about having to score the chance that led to the pen? He was on that ball like a flash, but so was the goalie, who fouled him for the pen that got us maximum points. While we were one man down, Eddie relieved some serious pressure by drawing 2 key fouls when Palace were looking dangerous. But yeah, go right on and die on your “Eddie is shit”… Read more »
the fact that you would place our title hopes on a player like Eddie is laughable. if you don’t trust xG check our xg with Eddie up top vs Jesus and trossard. With Eddie it’s the lowest. So you can single out his impact. Also given the low xg he produces he also negatively performs against his xg. Third lowest in the PL. He scored 4 of 20 big chances last season. He had 4 goals from 30 appearances last season. For the pen – angus does took the ball to mars. Also he could’ve squared a good ball after… Read more »
Loïs Openda.
22 years old (like Balogun).
Scored 21 goals in his first season in Ligue 1 (like Balogun).
Bought by RB Leipzig for €38.5 millions.
All data from transfermarkt.
openda played 2 full seasons in the eredivisie before ligue 1. he scored 10 goals in his first full season.
Balogun played 18 games for Middlesbrough and scored 3 times.
Anyway, we’re selling Balogun at market rate in my opinion. Probably the main reason why we’re selling him is that we have to balance the balance the books. He’s interesting prospect for sure, but for Arteta he’s not interesting enough.
he joined middlesbrough mid season
You forget to add that it’s about to be a record sale for arsenal FC if it gets to 40m pounds
With those rumours about Villa wanting Tavares I’m a bit perplexed why they wouldn’t rather have Tierney, especially when he was possibly our best player when Emery signed him.
Glad to see the Balogun deal is getting close given it seems the door is closed for him and that this means he won’t be going to Chelsea. I couldn’t countenance nor stomach that. I’d like to see a first refusal on him should we be interested in resigning him but I guess that doesn’t often happen when the initial outlay is that big.
Yeah, the Emery link means a move to Villa, on paper, makes a lot of sense for Tierney and Villa, especially if they’re in the market for a left back as the links to Tavares suggest. I guess it’s the money involved, but for a club with genuine top 6 aspirations and the fact that Tierney is levels above Tavares, it seems like a good moment to ‘speculate to accumulate’.
Why are we keeping Eddie and selling Balogun? I was so excited to watch him play for Arsenal after his season in France. We’ve only had a few of world class strikers in the past 20 years or so – Henry, Bergkamo, Van Persie and Aubameyang (please don’t downvote me for saying Auba, he was world class). I genuinely believe Balogun could have been as good as them. He deserved a fair shot after scoring 20+ goals out on loan. We bought Havertz for 65, which I have no issue with but using that as a reference we’re selling a… Read more »
At some point we have to sell players that we like. Some of those players may go on to achieve great things in the game.
Even Chelsea and City with their flagrant disregard for FFP/dignity have had to accept a churn of staff.
It sucks when it’s an academy kid but I can only see this becoming more prevalent.
As with all the decisions Arteta and the team make, it’ll be justified if we win something and questioned if we fall short.
city are selling players that are mainly older (mahrez, gundo) and they are going out and buying young WC talent (haaland, gvardiol). they haven’t sold players like foden. chelsea didn’t sell colwill who had a great loan. we didn’t sell saliba and saliba turned out great. to be honest i see what you’re saying but in this particular case I don’t see the point of selling a young academy player who’s proven himself out on loan without giving them a chance, while we are choosing to keep a player that has had 4 seasons to prove himself. that doesn’t seem… Read more »
Never say never, but Balogun will never be as good as Auba, let alone Van Persie, Bergkamp or (for pity’s sake) Henry.
and eddie will? balogun is already prolific is he is well on his way.
by and large, top 6 premier league teams buy at inflated prices and sell at discount.
these clubs only make money on transfers when they sell academy players.
Perfect ! That’s the awful reality.
I didn’t see Balogun playing in France. I assume he got much better than he was at the beginning of the year when, playing for us, he was quite clearly not ready. As I say, I’m sure a year of football in France improved him but, at the time, he looked a lot more like Yaya Sonogo than Thierry Henry.
This is stupid. Tierney offers smth different gg forward. We cant always use inverted all the time. The way i see now (i hope its temporary) is tt we are not heavily using our LB/RB to overlap…. Oh well…Really gutted if he moves, feels Tierney is destined to stay at Arsenal for a long time until the inverted role started.
I’m sick of this inverted bs too…not going to win us the league …Partey at RB?! Oh please…
You don’t understand modern football. It’s not rigid 442 anymore.
That could be true but we played an inverted full back last year and while it served us well in the beginning, we still ended up blowing the best chance we’ve had in years to win the league so, you know, there is that.
I do understand – I just don’t think it works for this Arsenal side.
At the end of the day the club needed to balance the books this summer and selling homegrown academy graduates is the easiest way to do it. There were people willing to pay 50m for Balogun and not Eddie so that will have influenced the clubs decision on who to keep. I would rather sell Balogun then someone like Smith Rowe who was probably also considered for sale. We should 100% be demanding a buy back clause for Balogun though.
I don’t think we would ask for a Buy back, but a sell on, especially if we are too far from our asking price. A buy back means Arteta is no longer at the club
One year later, Monaco will sell Balogun to a premier league club for 100 mio.
that may well be the case and an appropriate sell on clause will ensure we get another 10 – 15 mil out of it.
Sad to see Tierney lose become surplus for no fault of his. He’s a top notch left conventional FB that can play CB effectively. Had a guaranteed first eleven spot just a season ago and now has to contend with scraps due to tactical evolution that he can’t control. Sad.
I wouldn’t mind if the tactical evolution had actually won us anything, but it didn’t. And it also means we have no plan B except playing another inverted FB on the other side as well.
Some seriously funny ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ themed reels in relation to the Balogun transfer doing the rounds at the moment. Listen, my heart wanted this guy to stay and break every goal scoring record under the sun, but my head says that he isn’t a team player, never was never will be and his ‘I WANT FIRST TEAM FOOTBALL OR I WANT OUT’ attitude sucks. We don’t need him upsetting the dressing room. So, you know what? Sell him. As for KT, this really is a difficult one. I think in terms of numbers v injuries and suspensions, we… Read more »
he’s never said ‘I WANT FIRST TEAM FOOTBALL OR I WANT OUT’, I think we’re speculating that he said that and about his attitude. he’s only said that he wants to be given a chance to prove himself in interviews.
Where exactly did I mention that he SAID it?
I said that was his attitude. That much has been made clear to one and all.
The guy isn’t prepared to fight for his place, despite the fact he has hardly played any Premiership football at all – that opening day cock up against Brentford where he went missing the entire game and that’s about it.
I’m a bit disappointed that Flo didn’t get a chance to impress – he could have been a Balogooner, but soon he’ll be Balogone. Good luck to him and KT anyway. Onwards!
Tierney is a top player and by all accounts a good lad, will be sad to see him go. It’s less about his quality and more about tactical incompatibility. With Balogun I hope we put in a good sell on or buy back clause in there.
He may be 4th choice left back but look at this weekend’s squad: Zinny not fully fit, Tomi with a 1 match suspension and Timber obviously out. Who’s actually going to be left back? Kiwior, I assume? And Partey continuing at right back unless Gabriel comes back in at CB and White goes back to RB? We’ve gone from looking well stocked to a bit short in defence. Holding will have to stay as he could be needed if there was another suspension or injury.
if we sell balogun for close to £50,mil we pay the wages for the whole year for Saka, Martinelli, Jesus and Havertz. Loan KT out and get £110K off the books and it’s loan fee pays with the wages of Tommy. The other way around does not work Xhaka’s sale covers TP5 and Rice wages. the other sales so far and windfalls, Saliba’s wages. we need another £15m to cover the reast of the first 11 team, plus Eddie, and 7m more until Pepe gets off our books. £4.5mil for Timber then there are 12 more players wages, which is… Read more »
BBC report it’s 35 million for Balogan, Kt loan so he’ll be back next year. But hey we got Havertz. Arteta will surely die on that if this stuff doesn’t work out. Pep has changed his philosphy to 4 defenders who can & like defending, surely KT comes into that model.
I think we may go back 4 from time to time and i agree that KT would be preferable to Zinny on those occasions (with Kai on the bench)
White-Saliba-Gabriel-Zinny
——-Partey-Rice
–Saka Odegard-Nelli
——–Jesus
I’m disappointed at this news – and not just as a Scot who misses the glory days of England’s top division being overrun by my fellow jocks! If we are to surpass Man City at their game, we need to build a squad of players where every single individual is potentially in the starting 11 for any game. I don’t see the point of having inferior players making up numbers. How does Pep manage to keep his squad of players? Presumably his rotation system means his starting 11 “churn” equals a more content squad? Good luck to KT though –… Read more »