According to The Athletic, Arsenal have persuaded Karl Hein to stay at Arsenal although he’s likely to be sent out on loan for the upcoming campaign.
The 22-year-old Estonia international was due to become a free agent at the end of the month leaving the Gunners very short of options between the sticks for pre-season.
Not only are senior pair Aaron Ramsdale and David Raya tied up with Euro 2024 (potentially until mid-July), the Gunners have released five(!) keepers – Arthur Okonkwo, James Hillson, Hubert Graczyk, Ovie Ejeheri and Noah Cooper – lower down the pecking order.
While a few junior keepers remain on the books, including Alexei Rojas and Brian Okonkwo (younger brother of Arthur), it’s clearly an area of the pitch that needs strengthening from first team down to academy level.
Arsenal have already committed to buying David Raya from Brentford for £27 million and hope the sale of Ramsdale will cover the cost.
The England international’s exit will then necessitate the purchase of a backup goalkeeper – Feyenoord’s Justin Bijlow has been linked – while a loan for Hein could force them to promote a junior or dip into the market for a third keeper.
Hein has one senior appearance to his name at the Emirates. His only other senior football came during a six-month spell with Reading in the second half of the 2022/23 season.
Good sensible work that covers an immediate problem, and leaves mental bandwidth available for other transfer and contract business during the summer.
I WANT SOME TRANSFER NEWS!!!!
Can you just make something up please blogs?
17 year old playmaker Diego Costa Riveira dos Santos from Vasco da Gama who has been hailed “Odeginho”. £65m release clause. Edu has put down the bbq tongs and is currently flying to Brazil to finalise the deal.
Oooh. I’m exciting myself here. Which, given I’m married, isn’t unusual.
Chat GPT very good at hallucinations.
Do you mean Ødeginho?
Please no one with “Diego Costa” in their name
No Giovanni dos Santos for me either
He’s played 30 games for the Estonian national team, surely they count as senior football, no? Anyway, hopefully we can find a good loan for him, clearly needs regular game time.
I believe so. Just ask Mart Poom!
We need to send him to club that will actually play him regularly, no point him sitting on the bench at a Championship club.
This is all well and good but what do we know about this McNicolas fellow? Can he be relied on to provide accurate info? I’m always sceptical of ITKs like him.
Pretty disappointed Okonkwo has been released. Presumably he wasn’t Premier League quality, but he came across as such a good guy in the Wrexham doc!
Wrexham can get in the bin.
Wouldn’t sign a contract, nothing the club could do.
1) Okonkwo got a contract.
2) Okonkwo did well on loan.
3) Okonkwo got released.
Why 1) ?
2 (a) The loan was to a league 2 club, so maybe he’s not prem league standard? (even if he came across as a lovely lad in the Wrexham doc)
It’s amazing to me sometimes how we as fans think we can simplify the complexities and ebbs and flows of a player’s career and the club’s thorough, professional assessment of them (probably involving many different experts in different fields, videos, advanced metrics, doctors etc) into 3 bullet points
If we send himon loan, do we prepare him for number 1 keeper? Because if he is to be promoted from number 3 to number 2, then just keep him and use him as reserve now, instead of buyin another keeper.
Was anyone else’s big takeaway from this that the Okonkwos’ mum called her kids Arthur and Brian?
“His only other senior football came during a six-month spell with Reading in the second half of the 2022/23 season.“ That’s a bit harsh on the Estonian national side.