According to David Ornstein, Eddie Nketiah is set to spend next season on loan with Marseille.
The deal will see the 25 year old join the Ligue 1 side on a permanent basis next summer for a fee in the region of €30m.
🚨 Arsenal ready to sanction Eddie Nketiah exit for Marseille. Proposed deal season-long loan + buy obligation in region of €30m. Personal terms for 25yo #AFC striker agreed on 5yr contract. Ball now in #OM court to decide if proceed or not @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/mweGgRYqbZ
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) August 9, 2024
Eddie was rumoured to have flown to France last night to complete personal terms, and it now looks as if his long association with Arsenal has come to an end.
He joined aged 14 having been released – along with Declan Rice – by Chelsea. He came through the Hale End Academy, and made 168 appearances for the Gunners, scoring 38 goals and making 7 assists.
Often praised by Mikel Arteta during his time as manager, he fell out of favour in the second half of last season, and it now appears his future lies abroad.
Nelson is now the only one to remain to have played under Wenger. Just keep him for the sake of sentiments.
All the best Eddie. You will be in the golden boot race along with other gunners- Baloga and Lacca.
Maybe not Baloga..
…neither lacca
Baloga caviar? Are fish eggs playing striker now in Ligue Un? That sounds like a French Marvel movie I wanna see
I thought he went to Fulham.
Oh wait. That was Emile Smith-Roe
Not to Newcastle?
Oh, that was Joe Haddock.
You’re right I must have confused with those City players, Phil Toad-en and Jack Crayfish
For Cod’s sake, plaice stop!
One of my fave movies is Finding Haalibut
Eddie’s off to those loan sharks in Marseille.
This comment section is weird
Yup. Definitely something fishy about it.
Everyone knows their plaice
You’ve been here how many years and you are only noticing that now?
True, but no one’s getting crabby about it.
the key to a good pun is its shrimplicity
At least we got ricky calamari
The one window when we all finally go “fuck it, I’m not making any optimistic selling predictions” and we shift multiple players for great fees.
I’ve heard Arteta can be very persuasive to get players through the door.
I’d hate to see what he does when he wants them to leave. But my guess would be that it involves a chorizo and an orifice.
Speak for yourself mate. I was assigned to a virtual asylum for my giddy optimism a couple months ago.
Eddie vs Balogun for the golden boot, Mbappe now gone. By the way, Marseille was negotiating for Wahi lately.
They cut bait on that deal.
They prefer Wahi, do they? Some say Oliver Skippjack and Jordi Albacore are better, but I’m of tuna minds.
In Canada, where I now live, you could be sent to jail for this level of pun.
They don’t really send people to jail for much else actually, just a slap on the wrist and a “don’t do it again, eh?”.
I imagine all the jails here are just filled with puzzled ex-pats who failed to read the anti-pun penal code when they arrived.
If you ask any of the women I’ve dated, they’ll tell you I just don’t measure up to the penile code, so I best stay away from Canada.
All the best, Eddie! Shame it didn’t work out but hope it goes well for him.
If this goes through, that’s a pretty penny Edu’s managed now. 30 MM EUR + 40 MM EUR for Smith Rowe.
Hopefully another 20-30 MM for Reiss and that’s a great window for us from a selling point of view!
£20m for Reiss seems ambitious to me.
The man’s talking euros, seems about right.
this is shaping up to be the summer where we might have to stop saying “Arsenal are shit at selling”. Though a juicy deal for Ramsdale might be nice to solidify that…
Selling gets easier when the team is good. Imagine United trying to shift Antony, Shaw and Maguire now. They are having to pay AWB to go away. That’s the boat we were in for many years.
Imagine asking anything for casemiro after last season…
The 30m euros for Nketiah would be next summer no?
A lot of down votes today for fairly uncontroversial statements? That we’re selling better, and would be nice to get a good sum for Ramsdale too… where are folks taking offense? Some hard-core Ramsdale fans still left? For the record I am one, I just don’t think it would be good business to keep him as a second keeper if he’s rarely going to play.
If you go back to the years when we sold to Man City for the new money they brought to the league, it wasn’t bad. I do not have the numbers but Adebayor, Nasri, Sagna and Clichy. Only RVP to Man U was utterly ridiculous. The player wasn’t even nice to the club. We get all the money we want or you go nowhere. Couldn’t even do that.
I don’t think the idea that we’re bad at selling refers to that era but rather since Edu and co. took over, or basically since selling Willock. Before that we did plenty of decent business. Remember when we sold Marc Overmars to Barcelona for €30mil (back when that was like 75mil today) just as he was losing his lightning pace and quickly became next to useless? And similar with Petit? ha ha… you almost have to forgive them for what they did to us with Cesc after that… (though I shall never)
16M for Henry to Barcelona so no forgiveness.
No you’re right. Maybe if we hijack Merino from them after swooping in and gazumping their offer. The idea that a Spanish player has rebuffed Barca for us despite our limited war chest would start to make up for things…
Yeah. This. One thousand times this. He was literally the best player in the world and we sold him for substantially less than Veron. Arsene was such a good man, but people took advantage of that. I will always love Henry, but we didn’t owe him that move. We did as much for him as he did for us. Barcelona would have paid 5 times as much if we’d made them. Look at what they paid for that useless mess Coutinho.
Sagna played out his contract and left on a free.
What’s all this shouting in millimetres business!?!
Have to shout in millimeters, but it’s only talking if you use centimeters.
Add € 12 milion for Biereth and Tavares, Hopefully we can also sell Tierney, Patinho ( if he doesn’t sign a new contract) and lokonga.
What a brilliant bit of business if this goes through. €30m for Nketiah is the stuff of dreams.
Absolutely. For once we are the ones stealing money. Wish him well.
Seriously, that €30M must have a lot of add-ons or long-term structure (have to wait for details). Pity it is delayed a year, but still this is superb work for a guy that has been very much a bit part player (with pretty poor build up play and pressing capacity) and averaging 1 goal every 5.07 games or 217 minutes of play.
Well done Edu and team! Hopefully this somehow allows us some flexibility to bring in a replacement forward, but it’s a tough market.
A loan doesn’t help us short term. But long term this is a good bit of business.
well it gets his wages off the books in the short term so somebody can come in without too much of an accounting headache
The biggest positive of 25 year old Eddie leaving, is having his spot taken by a new signing that helps in the title challenge.
All the physical ability he possesses led to a lot of chance goals. I’m not really sure he ever fully understood (or was capable) of doing what Arteta wanted him to do.
Remember when we extended Eddies contract for a 5 mio yearly salary incl. sign on fee and people were getting mad about that amount of money we were spending on him. 2 years later we spent 10 mio and are getting 30 for him. So a 20 mio profit plus 15 goals he provided over that time. Almost seems like Edu knows better than most people on the internet. Crazy!
Euros and pounds are not equivalent value, the club are possibly making 12m here.
Picky, picky. OP’s comment remains valid.
At the current rate (1.17) 30 mio
€ are 25.6 mio £. So the profit would be 15.6. mio £. But does that really make a difference in the context of my comment?
And his mistakes have probably cost us one league title or a trophy at the least
Marseille getting away with robbery here.
Why? Have we rejected higher offers? The market for a player is not set by the selling club but only by clubs willing to buy.
Love nuance trolls, great addition to the discourse.
How? We’d be getting 100k a week salary off the books this year, and 30m euro (what the hell is the quickstroke for euro???) for him next year.
Poor in build up, poor at pressing in a press dominant system, one goal every 5.07 games or 217 minutes over the past two season. This is brilliant business for us. Edu simply isn’t at the standard we need. I’d rather Jesus, Havertz, Trossard and even Martinelli (who has basically never played there for us) starting up over Eddie. This is brilliant business.
While you are correct that Eddie doesn’t fit Arsenal’s system, I’ll strongly disagree with all the rest. I’m with Arteta on Eddie — he has all the tools, is an unbelievable professional and hard worker, and in the right team he is going produce plenty. Age-wise, he is entering his prime. He will finish top-three in Ligue 1 for goal-scoring next season if the deal goes through, which is why I hope there are a lot of add-ons and sell-ons in the deal. Remember when people used to point to expected goals and argue that Arteta would never improve and… Read more »
I’m not sure if it really matters if he excels in Ligue 1. He didn’t seem capable of it here, so it was time to move on.
No question it is time for him to shine elsewhere, like ESR, but to suggest he is a “poor” player and we are getting a deal well above his value is incorrect.
He’s a solid player, but that’s not good enough for what we’re after and it is telling that there was no interest from the EPL.
How do you know that there was no interest from the PL?
Well I mean, if he’s such a great player, a mid-table or new EPL team could easily gazump that Marseille offer (loan with obligation to buy and likely speadout and with add-ons)…but it hasn’t happened has it. EPL teams know they need strikers than can press as high-end turn-overs are so important – Eddie isn’t that guy.
Exact and they didn’t. He’s not very good heading, tackling, dribbling, tracking, pressing and most importantly reading the game and playing pass at right time. Hes a championship player at best and I wish him the very best going forward but this deal if it happens is a steal. Woohoo
Brentford, supposedly, because they thought they were losing Toney. Maybe Bournemouth now that Solanke is going to Spurs. Worth remembering de Zerbi coached in the PL and saw Eddie first hand. It’s a matter of how you value his fit in your system vs other attainable options. Lots of teams value a durable, willing and physically strong channel runner.
He might be a hard worker in training, but my biggest issue with Eddie is that he’s not a hard worker on the pitch. His pressing is poor – both tactically and in terms of workrate. And he’s not good enough in build up play. So, no, he doesn’t “have all the tools”. If Marseille can carry a poacher in their team, then great, he’ll pop up for some goals, but those limitations severely limit his upside. What Arteta says publicly about Eddie is clearly very different to his take in reality. He has lost total trust of Arteta and… Read more »
That’s your opinion, and we’ve disagreed on that before. Arteta has played Eddie a lot in the last few seasons — that tells you something, and I trust his assessment of the player. Like the comment above about no PL interest in Eddie, there is no evidence to suggest that he’s lost the trust of Arteta. That’s like saying that Martinelli has plateaued (a late comment from last season) or that Arteta doesn’t have it to succeed at Arsenal (from 2-3 seasons ago). Absurd. Is it time for Eddie to play elsewhere? Yes. Like ESR, his game doesn’t fit the… Read more »
Again, you keep stating that I say he is a poor player, but you’re making that up. I’ve said many times he’s a solid player, but nothing more. What I said here is that he is POOR off ball and POOR in the press – and I stand by that; that is why he’s being let go. If he was better at those things he’d be challenging for a starting spot right now and he’d potentially lock it down, because he’s a really good finisher and has poachers instincts. However, he’s limited by those POOR attributes, which make him a… Read more »
Well, everything you’ve said here suggested to me that you didn’t think Eddie was anything but a poacher who requires a team to carry him as he doesn’t do much else (poor, bit-part, manager lost faith in him, etc.), and that Marseille would be overpaying heftily for him if the numbers quoted above are accurate. I strongly disagree with that, and point to Arteta’s continued faith in the player and the club’s respect for his value, as well as Eddie’s professionalism, work-rate, and experience. We won some very important games last year with Eddie leading the line. He is not… Read more »
It’s cute that you have such an extensive note taking system on every Arseblog poster. Or perhaps it’s just me… Then I’m equal parts flattered and disturbed that I have an online stalker.
Hopefully, your notes include the far more common positive comments? Or you’d rather just use one post I made about concerns Martinelli plateaued last season in an attempt to show everyone in now a Martinelli hater too?
Ah well, whatever floats your boat bro!
Not really, just some posts are hard to forget, especially when they come from reasonable commentators. And I’ve applauded your posts on many occasions, but … I will leave you to it.
He has history Daveo, stalked me for a while too. 🙂
Nah, only reasonable commentators! 😉
😫😂
The variation in player valuation among our fans is mind boggling.
Agreed. This summer I’ve seen “if we don’t get at least £40m and a big sell on clause for Eddie then Edu should be SACKED” and “why did we reject Marseille’s [€20m / £17m] bid, that’s more than he’s worth”. You can’t please everyone I guess!
Sounds like a good deal for all parties. But with Nelson also likely to go, and Havertz still being a midfield option, we’re starting to look light in attack.
Don’t say it too loudly or people will shout you down, like they did when people complained about us light in midfield for the last 2 seasons
Light is fine, the issue becomes when your attack doesn’t work if one guy is missing. In other words, over reliance on a single unique profile is a problem. Of course any team looks different without Saka or Rice or Saliba, but the best teams have solutions for when those guys are out. We have that for Rice now with Merino and for Saliba with Timber and Calafiori. You might argue Jesus can do most of Saka’s job. Maybe Vieira can do some of the Odegaard stuff. Havertz can for sure cover Jesus at CF. Where I think we are… Read more »
No love for Trossard?
It’s not a matter of love but styles and how they fit with the team dynamic. Trossard is fundamentally a small spaces player. Although he has had a couple of nice “big space” moments (notably the solo goal vs Liverpool) he doesn’t live and breathe those types of actions like a natural space eater, nor does he have the physical makeup for it. Defenses don’t worry about him running behind them as much, nor can he take you all the way up the pitch by himself. That doesn’t mean I don’t rate him or that he’s not valuable; he is!… Read more »
Best of luck Eddie!!! A killer on your day. Go rip up Ligue 1 and enjoy your time in Marseilles – Its a cool city with great weather and champs league football
They haven’t qualified for Europe this season. Agree with the rest of your comment though
He was a “killer in his day”…what day was this? Annoyed I missed it.
I hope we will sign at least another player. It’s great if we can sell Reiss, Eddie and ESR (and I’m not sure of we still intend to sell Ramsdale or not). But I hope this will help bring a real difference maker and not just a solid player like Merino.
Reaping the benefits of signing young players onto new contracts. Ditto for Balogun and probably Nelson.
I don’t understand your comment…what benefits are we reaping from handing average players over -inflated contracts that makes it extremely difficult to sell on at a good price years later when they inevitably fail to make the mark?
I hope that Eddie goes there and scores a shed load of goals, then OM will be only to pleased to complete in 12 months times.
Why do we always have to tolerate loan deals? What is Edu doing? Man U got £27m directly from the same club for Greenwood no loan deal.
That is very likely specifically why they couldn’t purchase Eddie this year and needed to delay the transfer to next season. It’s a slight bummer, but that is a bumper fee… for a player that is solid, but no where near the current standard of our team.
I don’t see why it’s a problem that it’s a loan deal, it’s merely an accounting issue. Of course the kroenke would be willing to invest this amount of money to buy a player, because they know they’re gonna get it back in a year.
Pedro Neto to Chelsea for 60 million + add ons
I have no words, only emojis
His agent is very happy though- guaranteed payments from Clearlake for 8 seasons or however long the farce of a contract is for
Their squad is going to be crammed into that dressing room like sardines. Half of them might feel like fish out of water though. I have a feeling their whole season is going to flounder.
You couldn’t hake it up!!!
Salmon’s bound to be unhappy with this scale of transfers, likely to spawn some dis-cod.
It’s a shame because Neto is such a talented player that will now disappear into the west London ether the very next transfer window
🥴🤢🤮
Well said
Bonne chance Eddie!
I’m gonna miss that smile
These two goals against Norwich !!! Thanks for the memories Eddie14! You will always be a gooner!
Intrigued to see how De Zerbi improves Eddie’s pressing ability.
Newer trousers and a more expensive steam iron is my guess.