Arsenal have confirmed that Sambi Lokonga has joined Sevilla on a season-long loan and the player could make the switch on a permanent basis next summer.
The 24-year-old moves to the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan in search of regular first team football having tumbled down the midfield pecking order at the Emirates.
There were high hopes when the Belgium international joined from Anderlecht three years ago but he struggled to assert himself as either a number 6 or a number 8 and Mikel didn’t waste time recruiting alternative options including Jorginho, Kai Havertz and Declan Rice.
🆕 Albert Sambi Lokonga, refuerzo para la medular.
¡Bienvenido, Sambi! 🙌#WeareSevilla
— Sevilla Fútbol Club (@SevillaFC) July 15, 2024
After a year spent rebuilding his confidence at Luton Town, he’ll be hoping to hit the ground running in Spain. Sevilla represents a step up in terms of technical quality so it’ll be interesting to see how he fares.
First things first, he has to stay fit. Injury issues saw him ruled out for two big chunks of last season restricting him to 19 appearances in all competitions.
Sevilla have confirmed there is an option to buy Lokonga. It’s reported the fee will be in the region of €12 million and that the Gunners have inserted a 25% sell-on clause.
We wish him the best of luck.
Wasn’t that long ago this kid was attacking Roberto Martinez for not selecting him in the world cup squad and that was some very talented Belgium team. Talent alone can’t get you to the top in football, circumstances and the environment too play a role.
Hope he finds his feet and kicks on in Spain. Wouldn’t hurt if he turned out into a 100M player in a few years. I know, I know but Onana just moved for 50M and that was Villa not Chelsea
Hope he does well and we make some money out of him!
Being bought for 17m GBP, if we sell him for 12m EUR (10m GBP), we need his next move to be for at least 28m GBP, so that the sell-on clause breaks us even.
Wonga for Lokonga.
One of the loveliest most beautiful cities in Europe, I’m sure he’s gonna enjoy himself, hopefully also football-wise if je can break into the team which probably won’t be easy. Good luck to him (and to us for recouping some value for him)
I think we have to start making Spain less lovely. We can never get the feckers to leave San Sebastián.
We need to flood their restaurants with tins of spam and condensed milk and turn all their historic buildings into WH Smith’s.
I’ve got a mental picture of mosaic flooring being replaced by stained, torn and worn out carpet.
I’ve been to San Sebastian last year and I had hard time leaving after one day spent there.
Did you basque in its glory?
“I think we have to start making Spain less lovely”
Mate, Brits have been doing that for quite a few years now
It’s just a bit of a culture clash.
They have tapas, social drinking, beautifully crafted espressos in shady tavernas.
And we have cocaine.
It’s no one’s fault really. Just one of those things.
They have cocaine too, I’ve seen it! It’s cheaper than in the UK too. There’s just less need for it when you have tapas, social drinking and beautifully crafted espressos. Or Nico Williamses and Dani Olmos winning you the Euros with football as delicious as the aforementioned tapas… (I did watch the highlights)
Luckily still a few spots not *completely* overrun by tourists (and even then only if you go in the off-season) let’s leave them at least that shall we 🙂
They usually do end up leaving Sam Sebastian, they just tend to end up in Madrid when they do 😑
I hear their tax offices are really quiet all year round…
*San Sebastian (Sam Sebastian would be the alter ego Sam Allardyce invented for himself when he committed to an in-depth study of Spanish football tactics and then went on to the English press about how nobody respects his football knowledge)
(I’m also still bored if you can’t tell)
Yes, I can tell.
Still quite bored with the lack of incoming transfer news so came up with a list of words / phrases that only arseblog / arsenal fans understand.
LANS
That’s how it works (age)
*Boilk*
Interlull
Ryo Miyaichi’s love of cones
Mugsmashers
Magpies
Goodly morning
Water Sheringham
Rationate (potential new entry)
Let me know if anyone can think of any more…
This maybe universal now but I believe it was originally coined by Blogs: sp*rs.
Is HFB common or just here?
An option to buy, only. Rarely works out well. Pull yer finger out, Sammy. 10 goals and 12 assists would do it I reckon. We need the cash mate.
Good for him.
It’s really worrying that there seems to be no movement on quality incoming transfers-especially a striker.
The 2 major football competitions finished 12 hours ago. An obvious blocker to completing top tier signings.
80% of the players were knocked out 2 weeks ago.
Hey man. We’ve got Gyorekes en route (according to a Lisbon outlet 3 weeks ago), we’ve got a mystery German canoeing up the Thames as we speak and fricking Neymar is currently racing through the babbel app so he can speak Cockney Spanish when he arrives.
And as soon as the Euros end, we will triple announce them in a Charlie’s Angels themed twitter post.
Congrats, Sambi. Go tear it up in Spain.💪🏾👊🏾
This looks like a reasonable compromise. He won’t play at Arsenal and he struggles with morale under no minutes.