According to David Ornstein, Emile Smith Rowe is on the verge of a move to Fulham, for a fee in the region of £35m.
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Fulham close to reaching agreement with Arsenal to sign Emile Smith Rowe. Talks over move worth up to £35m; would be record recruit for #FFC + match biggest #AFC sale. If deal struck 23yo expected to do medical & finalise terms @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/NGElac5XXD
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) July 24, 2024
There have been question marks over his future throughout the summer, and despite some talk that Mikel Arteta was keen to hang onto the 23 year old, it now looks as if he’ll depart for pastures new.
Arsenal are set to play Bournemouth in Los Angeles this evening, kick off 7.30pm local time, so it could be instructive if Smith Rowe plays any part in proceedings.
If the deal is as close as reported, chances are he’ll be omitted in case injury hampers or scuppers any potential transfer.
Let’s see.
So sad to see him go but it has to be done. 😔
If it does happen then the very best of luck to ESR, he will be missed.
I loved watching him and still believe he will become great!! Best of luck to him!!
This breaks my heart, an all time favourite of mine. Loved how he played when we were in the doldrums. But he played 4 times in 2 years, we can’t pretend he is integral to the new Arsenal. I wish him nothing for the best, being a legend at Fulham and taking points off our rivals. Best of luck ESR.
😢
If he leaves… (and considering the words from Arteta recently) it’s hard to imagine that we’ll let the creative part of the season to rest on the shoulders of Odegaard alone.
Viera offers cover for Odegaard.
Nwaneri has secured that spot. And has a good shout to be the 8
I will be sad to see him leave but 35 million is good money. I wish him well (but not against us).
I don’t think a fee up to 35 million is good money. Basically the same as we paid for Fabio Viera.
You have to accept that if our players aren’t playing regularly we aren’t going to get as much money for them as the highly touted prospects we’re chasing as one of the biggest and richest teams in the world. It’s like someone trying to sell their used 5 year old couch that they bought for $2000 for $1800 on an online seconds retail site claiming how great it is… Dream on, of is so great, then don’t sell it…
Viera wasn’t a starter when we bought him mate.
Wasn’t Vieira €30m + €5m in add-ons? If so with conversion of this to £ will be more for ESR
Viera is a nothing player, cost 30 million with 5 million in add ons.Arsenal are in London, 29.9 million pounds + 5 million pounds add ons was the reported fee. Fulham haven’t paid 35 million for smith rowe yet. I will bet money we won’t get close to what we paid for Viera. Smith rowe is a very good player, Viera is the skinny Denilson.
It’s funny because online some Arsenal fans seem to be complaining that £35m isn’t enough. But fans of Fulham and other clubs seem to be saying it’s too much. Along the lines of ‘£35m for someone who hasn’t scored in 2 years!’. Appreciate views online not best place to guage public opinion btw. For little it’s worth £35m seems a good deal for Arsenal to me. Not great but slightly above what I thought, so good.
Makes you think we’d have probably gotten around 50m if we sold him a year ago… pity, but also we’d probably be a lot more regretful about it if it had happened then and many of us would’ve still very much believed he could’ve made it at Arsenal. Hindsight is 20:20 but probably worth paying the 15mil difference to be more or less sure that you did what you could and it just hasn’t worked out.
Very bad deal for Arsenal, who would you rather pay 35 million for smith rowe or Viera. Smith rowe or dewsbury hall. Smith rowe or Mason mount? I could keep going with at least another 10 players. Good player who wasn’t trusted by the manager. We didn’t learn the lessons from Arsene . We’re now collecting goalkeepers and left backs instead of Arsene’s fetish for inside forwards.
It’s good money for someone who is our most injury prone player but still very, very hard to take, considering he was on the same or even steeper trajectory as Saka only a few years back.
Good luck ESR and please, PLEASE, let us have put in a buy-back and sell-on clause just in case.
Surely Tierney holds that title
This one I know is needed. But I must say, it will be a tough one for me emotionally. It’s always been Saka and Smith Rowe. Will miss him
Killer flair, LB.
That goal full of motion and poetry against West Brom with the snow piling up (in the middle of lockdowns as well) deserves to hang in the Louvre. Thought KT, ESR and some others were here to stay for sure. Ah well.
This is one transfer that i do not want it to happen. He played well when he came on last season. I really hope he stays and arteta needs to learn to do more rotation and subs.
Artetas weak spot no doubt, we won’t win anything until he starts trusting players who don’t fit exactly into his system. Rice saka and saliba can’t play every game. Raya didn’t need to play every game, ramsdale a very good keeper who got an contact extension before Raya was signed then not played tanking his value. Zinchenko and Jesus transformative players for us will probably end up in a similar situation. Premier league teams have become to big an entity to have an manager, we obviously learned that with Arsene but forgot about it as soon as soon we won… Read more »
If this deal is happening, it simply means Merino to Arsenal is a sure bet. I wish ESR all the best.
This is a gut wrenching one and a knife right in the heart of what is Arsenal. A kid bought up in a playing style that screams Arsenal and who was made to play through groin injury hampering his career ultimately sold is hard to take. Arsenal doesn’t come.out of this with any flowers. I for one is gutted to the core. I will watch Fulhams game with interest next season if this happens. Love you ESR
Fair enough to feel like that. My take is quite different and that Arsenal do come well out of it. Developed a young player through the youth teams into the first team. Improved him and gave him the number 10 shirt. Unfortunately as we moved up a level he didn’t quite keep up (IMO) mainly due to injury but also TBF lack of opportunity at times. Then rather than keeping him longer accepting he wants to leave and allowing him to join a good Premier League team based in London (important to ESR apparently).
We didn’t move up a level, we’ve won nothing with arteta playing his system with his players. We won the fa cup because of aubameyang while playing wing backs. Watch the Bayern games from last season again, we’re not close to those teams who are competing to win the champions league. Watch the draw away to City last season we set up like we thought a draw was the best we could do. Tactics and coaches don’t win games players do. Smith rowe can win games, Arteta wouldn’t have a job without him. The only transfers of players in my… Read more »
It’s time
I remember a not too distant past when Saka and ESR were the two players leading the way towards the future. Shame that ESR didn’t happen the way Saka happened but that, as they say, is football. He stays in London and the fee will make a nice contribution towards our recruitment this window.
All the best, Emile, and thank you for everything.
I really, really wanted ESR to make it at Arsenal and become a legend. Pity the injuries robbed him of the momentum he was building and he never managed to force his way back. I still think he offers something a bit different but I think Arteta, the club and ESR have made their decisions. Another “what if”?
Letting ESR, Nketiah, Ramsdale and Nelson go means we must be close to our squad limit of home grown players?
We won’t be able to replace them all with foreign players, but Raya for instance is homegrown, and so is the Wolves guy. And I guess it’s part of the reason we’re interested in Eze.
We had 14 non-homegrown players last season, out of which Elneny and Cedric already left.
The maximum is 17, so we can sign up to 5 foreign players, Calafiori being the first.
Arsenal drew 1-1 with Bournemouth (winning 5-4 in penalties) and ESR was an unused sub. Looks like poo-o-meter for this one is 1 or 0
I’m glad we’re getting what is close to what Aston Villa offered some time back so we don’t have to rue that day. Also, it’s easier to swallow him leaving now rather than on the back of his highest Arsenal goal-scorer campaign.
By the way, is it too late for Odegaard to pick up the #10
Bit sad but at least it’s not another loan
I don’t want this. I know it’s probably the right thing, but still. I don’t want this.
Okay, so today is going to start with some crying….
I know it’s for his best & for ours, but this still sucks… I’m only just getting over Ramsdale being dropped….
Terribly sad to see him go, superb player when at his best, I hope it does not come back to haunt us
Smith-Rowe reminds me very much of Paul Merson.
Both instinctive players with similar playing styles, both came through the academy, and you get the feeling that, as with Merse, as the instructions have become more sophisticated the team has out grown what they’re capable of.
I’m sure like Merse, he’ll go on to have a good career and quite possibly come back to punish us at points but my suspicions are he’s too much of a maverick for an Arteta team.
A levels don’t make a good player, being good at football makes you a good player. Luckily for us we don’t have Diego Maradona coming through the academy. He wouldn’t be able to get Arteta’s complicated tactics. Mikels tactics would have been too sophisticated for him and he would have disappeared into obscurity before we got the chance to see him play.
Nooooo. I am a big fan of ESR and maybe a bit of that is based on his potential, but I still believe he has a lot to offer us. I hope there is a buy back and sell on clause at that price because he could definitely boom and we ll be left with egg on our hands.
Wish him the best, health and form. Once a Gooner!
Tbh, I’m hoping for Emile’s sake that Arsenal come to regret this.
We’re going to regret this, he can do something not many players no matter how good have ever been able to consistently do, and that is come on as a substitute and change the course of a game by either scoring or creating an goal.
Wishing him all the best, may he live up to his full potential 🙏🏾